Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.