Bingo in New Mexico

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New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the state of New Mexico many 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 between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.