Tutorials:Making use of the new Gamepad functionality on Windows Linux OSX - tobiasschulz/MonoGame-SDL2 GitHub Wiki

Here is how you make use of the new gamepad functionality:

1. Set up your game exactly like you normally would.
2. Go to "MonoGame/ThirdParty/GamepadConfig/" and copy the contents to your "bin/Release/" and "bin/Debug/" folders.
3. ??
4. profit!

Running GamepadConfig.exe will let you map the axis/buttons/povhats of any joystick to an XNA Gamepad input.