Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 important 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 office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie 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 fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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