New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.