New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. 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 Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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