New Mexico Bingo
Thursday, 11. September 2025
New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying 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, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Chace