04.26
Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.