New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Casino on 03/05/2025 10:25 pm by Anthony
New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House 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 announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.