New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. 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 now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.