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New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby 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, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.

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