New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.