Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.