New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
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 American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
April 4th, 2026
Cohen
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