New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important 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 over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.