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New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local tribes 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 office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.