New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying 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 government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
October 3rd, 2022
Alvin
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