• Home

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.

Log in