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New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 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 appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the state 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 government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly 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 sorts of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.