New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed 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 task force came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the state of New Mexico 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 Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.