New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.