Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby 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 legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.