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New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many 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 accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.