Casino Tips Learning Casino Tips

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn't be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico 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 ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 90's. That is most likely hopeful thinking.