New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big 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 Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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