• Home

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a complex gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.

Log in