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New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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