Bingo in New Mexico
Tuesday, 29. July 2025
New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
Posted in Bingo by Taryn