Bingo in New Mexico

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New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.