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New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. 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 Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held 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 Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling 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 the deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a 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 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.