New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.