Bingo Tricks

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New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed 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 assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.