New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many 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 accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.