New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore 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 ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.