New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.