New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.