[ English ]

New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.