Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, 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 a deal, thereby 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 compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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