New Mexico Bingo

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.