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

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped 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 required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.