New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.