New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.