05.24
New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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