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New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 big 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 office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore 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, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.