New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government 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 government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. 10 years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
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