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New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.