New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed 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 assembled a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on March 21, 2025, 11:25 pm and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.