Bingo Strategy

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a bitter gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two big local bands 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 appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.