New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Bingo on 03/14/2026 03:25 pm by Eileen
New Mexico has a complex gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel 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 appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.