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New Mexico has a rocky gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped 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 required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.