Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.