New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.