New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Bingo on 09/10/2025 01:25 am by Eileen
New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.