New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
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