New Mexico has a rocky gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled 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 required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular 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 hopeful thinking.