Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
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