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New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 important 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 gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.

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