New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on May 17, 2025, 5:25 am and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.