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New Mexico has a bitter gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

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

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.