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New Mexico has a bitter gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.