New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico 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 contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
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