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New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.

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