New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. 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 Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.