New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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