New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two important 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 over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.