New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

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

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.