New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.