New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. 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 cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.