New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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