New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
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