New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state 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 government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
