New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.