New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore costing the state 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 house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.