New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
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 accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
