New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.