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New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.