The New Mexico Gaming Control Board shows tribal casinos are making a comeback with slot profits. This means they are finally catching up with pre-pandemic levels.
Like many industries across the state, tribal casinos took a huge hit with the COVID-19 pandemic and the dicey economy and inflation that followed. In 2020, money coming into casinos came to an abrupt halt.
Michelle Pato is the lead attorney for the New Mexico Gaming Control Board. She explained, “It’s hard in an industry that had to be non-existent during the pandemic. We don’t have online gaming here, so everything completely shut down.”
Even when things started to pick back up in 2021, rules and regulations like mask policies, sanitization, and social distancing impacted the casinos’ profits.
