New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, 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 nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.