Roanoke’s quest for a casino is unfolding in a different way than any of the other Virginia cities that have been authorized to have casinos.
In each of those six other communities (Petersburg replaced Richmond, so only five are currently authorized), local legislators backed the proposal.
In Roanoke, all three legislators representing the city are opposed, as are other regional legislators who would otherwise be natural allies. Some of these legislators are not simply opposed — they are adamantly opposed. “I am completely and totally opposed to a casino coming to Roanoke and I will oppose it viscerally and vehemently with every fiber of my being,” state Sen. Chris Head, R-Botetourt County, has said. “I will work with everything I’ve got to make sure this doesn’t happen.”
In those other six cities, the casino was preceded by a state study and often local studies. In Danville, there were a total of three studies.
Roanoke has none.
Here’s yet another potential complication: The studies for the Danville and Petersburg casinos identified Roanoke as part of their market, so a casino in the Star City could be seen as competition. Furthermore, a state study of casinos in general described market criteria that could be used to argue that a Roanoke casino would also be competition for the Bristol venue.
The legislative opposition to a Roanoke casino isn’t new; that was voiced — often vociferously — on the day that Roanoke unveiled its proposal. The studies aren’t new, either, but they also haven’t been reexamined in light of Roanoke’s proposal. That’s what I’ll do today.
For a community to host a casino, two things have to happen: The General Assembly has to grant permission, and that locality’s voters must then agree in a referendum. In each case so far, the legislature has added a third requirement: a state study, conducted by the General Assembly’s so-called watchdog arm, the Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission.
The first study, in 2019, examined the five cities that were in the initial bill: Bristol, Danville, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Richmond. The first four cities all later approve casinos. After a referendum in Richmond, the General Assembly instructed JLARC to conduct an additional study on both Richmond and Petersburg. After a second referendum failed in Richmond, the legislature authorized a casino in Petersburg and voters there approved in 2024.
In addition to those state studies, Danville, Norfolk, Petersburg and Portsmouth all had separate studies of their own conducted; a total of three studies were done regarding the Danville casino — one by the state, a second commissioned by the city and a third initiated by the nonprofit Danville Regional Foundation. (Disclosure: The foundation is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.)
The initial JLARC study in 2019, which ran 200 pages, defined the “competitive market” for casinos as a two-hour drive from the facility. Google Maps puts the distance from Roanoke to Caesars Virginia in Danville at 1 hour 34 minutes, within that two-hour radius, and the distance to the Hard Rock casino in Bristol at 2 hours 19 minutes, just barely outside that radius.
The study conducted for the city of Danville by the Convergence Strategy Group looked at a three-hour radius, which extended the potential market north to Harrisonburg and as far as west as Abingdon.
The 2022 JLARC study of Petersburg also put Roanoke within the market area for a casino there, even though Google Maps puts the driving time at 3 hours 1 minute.
That Petersburg study also projected that a casino there would reduce revenue at the Danville casino by 7%, at the Norfolk casino by 7.4% and at the Portsmouth casino by 9% but have “no material impact” on Bristol, more than five hours away. Google Maps puts the driving distance from the Petersburg casino to the Danville casino at 2 hours 26 minutes, to Norfolk at 1 hour 28 minutes, to Portsmouth at 1 hour 24 minutes.
Based on those studies, a casino in Roanoke might be seen as competition to three others in the state — Bristol, Danville and Petersburg. The question is: How much of a competitor would it be?
In the absence of an actual study, we really don’t know. We can, though, look at where those existing casino’s customers are coming from.
Those were all projections before the casinos opened. How have they actually worked out? Petersburg’s casino isn’t open yet (a temporary facility is set to open Jan. 22). However, the others are. The casinos in Bristol and Danville did not respond to my inquiry about how many visitors they have from Roanoke, but Yogonet, a gaming news site, previously reported that the Bristol casino had seen “a sharp increase in visitors” from Roanoke and other metro areas to the south. When Danville had a temporary casino, a Caesar’s official said the venue was drawing a lot of day-trippers but once the permanent facility opened (which it now has), visitors were expected from a “three-, four-, five-hour range.” Even if the market range never expanded, Roanoke would still fall within the day-tripper range.
So what’s all that mean for Roanoke’s quest for a casino? This is all something of a game of chance.
Roanoke is betting it can somehow get the General Assembly to approve a casino over the objections of its hometown legislators — something the legislature has never done before.
Roanoke is also betting that a casino can make a go of it in the Star City without having a formal market study for validation. Presumably the casino operator thinks it can make a go of it in Roanoke, but it’s notable that the city — unlike many of its counterparts — hasn’t commissioned a formal study to make sure.
Although so far the state has commissioned a JLARC study for each casino, there’s no legal requirement that either the state or locality do so. The initial JLARC report made multiple recommendations about how casinos should be handled. One of those recommendations was that the state should require that “an independent consultant, hired by the state, assess the accuracy and feasibility of casino development proposals.”
That was never adopted.
Neither was a recommendation that casino operators be chosen through “a competitive selection process, overseen by a designated committee whose members have experience in business finances and operations and represent state and local interests.”
Instead, each city has simply signed a deal with whomever it wanted to. In Roanoke’s case, we don’t officially know who the proposed casino operator would be.
Roanoke’s viability, and the identity of the casino operator, aren’t the only things we don’t know.
Although the state has now conducted two casino studies, there’s been a notable omission: Each study looked at whether there was a sufficient market in certain cities to support a casino — and, in the case of Petersburg, what impact that facility would have on the others.
What the state has not studied is how many casinos the state could support — and where. It’s possible, for instance, that Roanoke could support a casino, and do so without cutting too much into the existing casinos that the state has sanctioned. We just don’t know, because no one has asked.
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