New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.