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New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required 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 American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.