Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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