New Mexico has a complex gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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