New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important 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 office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, 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 deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.