New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. 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 American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.