New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.