New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 important 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 appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.