New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two 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 office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.