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New Mexico has a bitter gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn't be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990's. That's without doubt wishful thinking.