New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.