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New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.