New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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