New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, 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, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.