New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might 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 appointed a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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