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New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would 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 announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.