[ English ]

New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico 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 Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.