New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

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 passed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.