After voters in Richmond twice rejected a proposal to build a casino in Virginia’s capital city, a bill signed into law last week ensures there will not be a third vote.
Bills proposed by Del. Betsy Carr, D-Richmond, and state Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Richmond, and unanimously passed by the Virginia General Assembly were signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The legislation removes Richmond as an eligible city to host a casino.
Richmond voters overwhelmingly defeated a casino proposal last November
While Virginia online casinos remain illegal, Richmond was one of five Virginia cities approved to house a brick-and-mortar casino in 2020. The law allowed each city to create a referendum for residents to vote on whether they wanted a casino in their city.
Voters in four of the locations – Bristol, Danville, Norfolk and Portsmouth – approved measures to build casinos in their cities.
Richmond voters, however, twice defeated casino referendums, in 2021 and again in 2023. The measure failed by less than 1,500 votes in 2021. Last November, though, voters soundly defeated the proposal, with nearly 62% of the vote going against the casino proposal.
Language in original casino legislation changed to exclude Richmond
The bills, signed into law by Youngkin last week, remove language that made any city with more than 200,000 residents in 2018 eligible for a casino. These population estimates were based on the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service of the University of Virginia. Richmond had more than 225,000 residents in 2018.
The bills also removed language, in the same clause, that allowed eligibility for a city with more than 24% of the assessed value of all real estate that was exempt from local property taxes in fiscal year 2018, according to the report from the Virginia Department of Taxation. In 2018, more than 25% of Richmond met that criterion.
While state laws don’t specifically specify which cities are eligible for consideration to build a casino in, there are requirements that exclude most Virginia cities.
According to Virginia law, casino gaming shall be limited to cities that meet certain criteria:
“Any city that (i) had an annual unemployment rate of at least 3.6% in 2018, according to data provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics; (ii) had an annual poverty rate of at least 20% in 2017, according to data provided by the US Census Bureau; (iii) experienced a population decrease of at least 4% from 1990 to 2016, according to data provided by the US Census Bureau; and (iv) is located adjacent to a state that has adopted a Border Region Retail Tourism Development District Act.”
Another clause noted that “any city that had (i) an annual unemployment rate of at least 5% in 2018, according to data provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics; (ii) an annual poverty rate of at least 20% in 2017, according to data provided by the US Census Bureau; and (iii) a population decrease of at least 20% from 1990 to 2016, according to data provided by the US Census Bureau” would be eligible to be considered for a casino.
Current state of casinos in Virginia
Three of the five cities originally approved to house casinos currently have either temporary or permanent ones in operation. Efforts to build a casino in Norfolk remain in limbo. Developers are working to get the Norfolk City Council to approve their proposal.
Last year, Petersburg threw its name into the hat for consideration. The city is located just 25 miles south of Richmond. Proponents claim a casino would have a positive economic impact on the city, in terms of job creation as well as increasing property values.
Lawmakers approved Petersburg as a possible location for a fifth casino in Virginia this session. Youngkin, however, sent the proposal back to the General Assembly after making changes to the legislation. Lawmakers will return to the capitol on April 17 to consider the governor’s changes.
