New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King 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 gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.