New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped 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 took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.