New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.