New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the state 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 process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.