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New Mexico has a bitter gambling history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group came to an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.