New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would 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 announced a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.