New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big 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 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. 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 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.