New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

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

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.