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New Mexico has a rocky gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus 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 State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.