New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held 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 Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government 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 house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. 10 years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.