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New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico 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 ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.