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New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn't be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing 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, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90's. That is probably wishful thinking.