Casino Tips

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby 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 house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.