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New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
