New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian 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 office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.