10.17
New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor 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 wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.