[ English ]

New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.