New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.