New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government 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 State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.