New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.