[ English ]

New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.