New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico 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 ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.