New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would 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 panel in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes 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 seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.