New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native 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 would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
