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New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined 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 Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.