New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor declined 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 Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.