New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, 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.