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New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the 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 accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.