New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor 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 seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico many 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 process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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