Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces 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 compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. 10 years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.