[ English ]

New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.