New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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