Bingo in New Mexico

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New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.