New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.