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

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby 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 process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.