New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.