New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government 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 ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.