New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.