New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.