New Mexico has a rocky gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the state of New Mexico many 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 contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
