Casino Strategies

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.