New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native bands, 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 took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.