Bingo in New Mexico

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.