New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the IGRA was signed 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 announced a working group in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.