New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.