Bingo Strategy

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico 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 compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity 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 revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.