New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to 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 office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on June 19, 2025, 1:25 am and is filed under Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.