Casino Strategy Winning Casino Strategy

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

New Mexico has a complex gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, 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 situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government 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 legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 90's. That is most likely hopeful thinking.