New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state 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 amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.