New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling 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, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.