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New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.

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