New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would 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 assembled a task force in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.