New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.