New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two big local bands 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 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government 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 legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.