Bingo in New Mexico

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New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined 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 gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its 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 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.