New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.