New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.