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New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.