04.05
Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused 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 gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus 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 house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
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