New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.