New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many 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 compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.