New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped 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 took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.