Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found 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 revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.