Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.