New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces 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 compact, therefore denying 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, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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