Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.