New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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