New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a key factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.