New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
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