New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby 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 process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.