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New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.