[ English ]

New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.