New Mexico Bingo

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New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many 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 accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.