• Home

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 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 over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.

Log in