New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had outstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
