New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on March 29, 2025, 5:25 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.