New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to discuss an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on March 11, 2026, 5:25 pm and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.