New Mexico has a bitter 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 bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands 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 office in 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.