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New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.

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