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

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby 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 amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.