New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on August 22, 2026, 1:25 pm 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.