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New Mexico has a bitter gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.