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New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force came to 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus 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 government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.

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