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New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. 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 craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.

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