Bingo My Bingo Blog

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying 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, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key factor like they did back in the 1990's. That's without doubt wishful thinking.