[ English ]

New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson 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 process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.