Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.