Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big 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 over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.