New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico 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 contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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