New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a complex gaming background. 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 Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.