New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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