New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord 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 1995, it appeared that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the state 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 house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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