New Mexico has a complex gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.