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New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.