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 Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at 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 office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico 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 process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.