New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed 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 panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.