[ English ]

New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state 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 government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.