New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.