Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Bingo on 03/15/2026 05:25 pm by Eileen
New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown 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 look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.