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New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico many 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 American Indian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.