New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
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