05.22
New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
