Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.