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New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two important local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.