New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with two big 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 Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business 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 one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.