New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

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