New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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