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New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, 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 working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

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

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.