Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
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