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New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused 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 gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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