New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the state 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
April 5th, 2016
Dayton
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