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New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees 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 accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.