New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
