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New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands 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 Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.

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