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New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.

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