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New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson 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 took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

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

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.

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