Bingo in New Mexico

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New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees 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 Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.