02.09
New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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