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New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the state 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 process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.