12.17
Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.