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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 American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.

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