New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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