[ English ]

New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger 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 passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.