Casino

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many 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 ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.