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New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 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 American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local bands 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 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.