New Mexico has a rocky gambling history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.