New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.