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New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. 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 cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel 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 Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.