New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying 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, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.