New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. 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 Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an agreement with two big local bands 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 seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.