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New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.