In action just three minutes before the constitutional deadline Monday night, Gov. Glenn Youngkin sent a bill to legalize “skill” games and create a regulatory framework for the electronic devices back to the General Assembly with amendments, but the details of those amendments were not available.
Earlier in the day, Youngkin said he had been negotiating with lawmakers over some proposed changes.
Other actions
The governor also vetoed:
- A bill that would have allowed local governments to hold a referendum to raise sales taxes for schools. That measure had been sponsored by Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, and state Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William County. In his veto statement, the governor said: “This proposal could result in a nearly $1.5 billion a year tax increase on Virginians. Some localities would have a combined sales tax rate of eight percent, with no additional offsets, such as reduced income tax or property tax.”
- A bill that would have created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board. That measure had been sponsored by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County and Del. Karrie Delaney, D-Fairfax County. The veto statement was not available yet online.
“We have been working with a bipartisan group of legislators because it’s really important to them,” Youngkin said told reporters in Richmond.
“I have major problems with the bill that came over. And so we’ve been working to see if we can address those we’ll see. But I think we’ll continue to work all day, and we’ll have a final decision later this afternoon.”
Youngkin added that he was hoping to get to a place where he can “put in a package of amendments around the skill games bill again,” which he said was a very important objective to a number of legislators of both parties in both chambers of the legislature.
“And so we undertook to engage with them in a very, very focused and concerted way this week. And there’s still work to do but we’ll see what happens over the course of today.”
At 11:56 p.m. the governor’s office released the final list of bills he had acted on. The “skill” games bill was listed under “amended bills,” but the details had not yet been added to the legislative information system.
SB 212, sponsored by Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, and Sen. Timmy French, R-Frederick County, among others, which had passed in the Senate by 32-8 and in the House by 51-45. The House passed the companion measure, HB 590, last month also on a bipartisan 65-34 vote, followed by a unanimous vote in the Senate.
Both chambers of the legislature backed legislation that would establish a regulatory framework and tax structure for “skill” games, benefiting small businesses and generating an estimated $200 million in tax revenue for the commonwealth. Critics had called the games “neighborhood slot machines.”
The General Assembly in 2020 passed legislation banning skill games effective July 1 of that year after some lawmakers expressed concern that the electronic betting machines could pose a threat to the profitability of several planned casinos in the commonwealth.
But after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered thousands of businesses, lawmakers agreed to a one-year reprieve for operations of the electronic skill games. There are currently 6,000 machines in the commonwealth that were previously regulated by the Virginia ABC, plus an estimated 2,000 additional machines that are operated illegally.
After the expiration of the ABC’s regulatory oversight ended on June 30, 2022, businesses across Virginia have been operating skill games in murky legal territory.
That ended last fall, when the Supreme Court of Virginia reinstated the state’s ban on slots-like skill machines in the commonwealth, overruling a decision by a lower court that had issued a temporary injunction blocking the enforcement of the ban.
The Greensville County Circuit Court issued the injunction in December 2021 after Hermie Sadler, a former NASCAR driver and entrepreneur from Emporia, had filed a suit against then-Gov. Ralph Northam; Mark Herring, then the attorney general; and the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority after Virginia’s ban of skill games went into effect.
While the injunction was in place, Virginia was not collecting tax revenue on legal skill games.
In his suit Sadler alleges that the ban infringes his First Amendment rights as a businessman and that its sole purpose is to create an advantage for large, resort-style casinos and gambling chains moving into Virginia at the expense of small businesses surviving off the profit of the betting machines.
