New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.