New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.