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New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the government 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 legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.

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