Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.