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New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.