Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling 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 compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues 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 operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.