New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused 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 Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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