New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.