New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.