Posted on: December 12, 2024, 12:18h.
Last updated on: December 12, 2024, 12:45h.
Early lobbying in Virginia suggests state lawmakers in Richmond will once again consider further expansion of commercial gambling.
Once among the most restrictive states when it comes to gambling, the state-run lottery and parimutuel wagering the primary exceptions, Virginia in recent years has bet heavily on gaming to prop up regional economies, create jobs, and deliver new tax streams to the capital. Virginia is today home to home to brick-and-mortar casinos, online sports betting, and slot-like electronic historical horse racing (HHR) machines at racetracks and off-track betting facilities.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), an organization dedicated to exposing the money behind politics in the commonwealth, several gaming entities are spending big on the 2025 legislative session that begins January 8 and runs through February 22.
Financial disclosures highlighted by VPAP show that Caesars Entertainment has already spent $418,155 on lobbyists in Virginia for the 2025 session. Caesars will open Caesars Virginia, a $750 million integrated resort destination in Danville, next Tuesday, December 17.
Churchill Downs, which last month opened The Rose Gaming Resort, an HHR facility in Dumfries, has spent $268,593.
No NOVA Casino, a political committee fighting against an effort to allow residents of Fairfax County to vote on a commercial casino, has raised $370,209. MGM Resorts has invested $222,267, which will presumably help the No NOVA Casino crusade as the Las Vegas-based gaming giant seeks to protect MGM National Harbor across the Potomac River from Northern Virginia.
The Sports Betting Alliance, which, in addition to lobbying for sports betting legalization campaigns for iGaming, has allocated $160,926 to bring online slots and table games to Virginia. And Pace-O-Matic, the developer of the controversial Queen of Virginia skill games, has spent $461,048 on its effort to legalize the gray games that were banned in October 2023 after the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling.
The odds at this time don’t appear necessarily strong that Virginia State Sen. David Marsden’s (D-Fairfax) push to qualify Fairfax and Tysons for a casino will succeed.
Most of the community, including homeowners’ associations and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, is opposed to allowing Las Vegas to come to the rural DC area known for its affluent neighborhoods and for being a major hub of Fortune 500 companies. Several unions, however, do support the initiative, and those unions have clout in Richmond.
A gaming issue that will likely garner a more in-depth review is skill games. Hundreds of small businesses across the commonwealth said the games provided critical revenue during and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic.
During the 2024 session, the General Assembly passed legislation to allow any business licensed by the ABC to include skill gaming machines. The bill suggested a 25% tax on gross revenue retained by the cabinets.
The measure failed after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) heavily amended the bill to include a 35% tax. More consequentially, Youngkin said he’d only sign the statute if it included a 35-mile buffer zone surrounding casinos and parimutuel wagering venues and a 2,500-foot exclusion from all schools, daycares, and places of worship.
Lawmakers said the governor’s exclusion zones would effectively outlaw the machines almost everywhere other than in the state’s most rural places.
