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New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked 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 task force in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.