New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused 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 now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling 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 accord, thus costing 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, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
October 18th, 2022
Tamara
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