• Home

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, 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 compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.

Log in