Virginia Senate rejects Youngkin's tougher rules for skill games (2024)

The 34 votes against Youngkin’s proposals versus six supporting them move the measure back to the governor, who has the power to veto the measure.

If he does, there is no opportunity to override it.

With the bill now headed back to Youngkin’s desk, “we hope that he reconsiders the future of the tens of thousands of small businesses struggling to make ends meet here in his own commonwealth,” said Rich Kelly, president of the Virginia Merchants and Amusem*nt Coalition, a group of stores that lobbied for legalization.

Youngkin had no immediate comment on the Senate vote, press secretary Christian Martinez said.

Skill games are the slot-machine-like electronic gaming devices that the General Assembly banned in 2020. A Greensville County judge barred the state from enforcing the ban, but the Virginia Supreme Court reinstated the ban late last year.

Convenience stores, restaurants and truck stops, hit hard by the pandemic, say they have relied on income from skill games to stay in business.

Hundreds of convenience stores protested the governor’s amendments this week, declining to sell Lottery tickets on Monday and closing their doors for one of their busiest hours on Tuesday.

Zahid Hussain, owner of the Halifax Exxon, on U.S. 301 in South Richmond, said the machines are a lifeline for small businesses and that their revenue remains critical.

“We survived the time of COVID because of those games,” Hussain said of convenience stores that feature the machines. Now, without the revenue they provide “we are not able to keep the doors open,” he said. “It’s really hard for us.”

Youngkin’s amendments would have boosted taxes on the machines, dramatically raised the licensing fees stores and truck stops pay and cut the number of machines they can install.

The governor also proposed strict geographic limitations that would bar the machines within 35 miles of other gaming sites, such as casinos, Rosie’s gaming emporiums or horse tracks.

The governor also wanted to prevent the machines from being within 2,500 feet of a school, a house of worship or a day care center.

Hussain of Halifax Exxon said the combined restrictions would bar skill games from “almost 90% of Virginia.”

Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, who sponsored the legislation, has called Youngkin’s proposed amendments “a slap in the face to thousands of Virginia small businesses.”

Rouse’s Senate Bill 212 was a compromise between what the Senate approved and stricter oversight in the version of the law that came out of the House of Delegates.

In its final version, the measure had tightened some regulation from what the skill game promoters had wanted.

But it would cut the number of skill games in Virginia convenience stores, restaurants and truck stops from the 80,000 that had been installed after the court order blocking enforcement of the 2020 ban, Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, has said.

Skill game revenue would be taxed at 25%, up from the Senate’s 15% but less than the 30% a House version had proposed.

Youngkin’s amendments would have increased the tax to 35%.

His amendments also would have given localities authority to bar the games.

He also proposed that the games have to pay out at least 80% of the money people wager, and that cities and counties can adopt ordinances or hold a referendum on banning the machines. The maximum payout would be capped at $500.

Youngkin’s amendments would have boosted the license fee for stores and truck stops, from the $250 in the General Assembly bill to $9,000 for a convenience store and $21,000 for a truck stop.

Stores would have been allowed to host only three games, instead of the four in Rouse’s bill, while truck stops would be limited to seven, instead of 10. The money hosts get from the machines would not be allowed to exceed 20% of their total gross revenue.

The Lottery, rather than the Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, would be responsible for regulating skill games and there would be a centralized monitoring system tracking what the games take in, what they pay out and what taxes are due. The games’ promoters had opposed that when some legislators unsuccessfully proposed the idea during the session.