The Virginia Senate decided to send online casino legislation to the House about five hours after it voted against the same bill.
The same 19 senators voted for the VA online casino bill in both votes on the Senate floor Monday The second vote, taken at near the end of a more than seven-hour day, included three non-voters who had previously voted no.
Sen. Schuyler VanValkenberg, a no voter the first time around, requested the vote be reconsidered so the bill could be passed by instead of defeated by the chamber. Sens. Bill DeSteph and Stella Pekarsky joined VanValkenberg as no votes that did not participate in the second vote.
That left SB 118 by Sen. Mamie Locke to pass the Senate by a 19-17 vote after falling 20-19 earlier that afternoon.
‘Not modernization but madness’
Sen. Bill Stanley took the first swings at SB 118, starting with how addictive the smartphone already is, noting the legislature passed a bill last year with “bell-to-bell” phone bans for all schools.
“And now, we’re being asked to put a slot machine on it,” Stanley said. “Let that sink in for a moment. We have spent the last decade in this country watching what smartphones have done [to] a generation. We watch teenagers unable to put the device down at the dinner table, in the classroom, in bed at 2 o’clock in the morning.”
Making a casino available 24/7 in bedrooms, bathrooms and school buses is “not modernization but madness,” Stanley added.
Sen. Bryce Reeves, who was chairman of the joint subcommittee studying the feasibility of a Virginia Gaming Commission, had his mind changed on the matter.
“I just happen to be engaged to a forensic psychologist who works on addiction and she changed my mind to where I’m a no on this,” Reeves said. “… After consulting with her and her telling me what we’re about to do to our youth, I can’t in good faith vote for this bill.”
Leave emotions out of it
Before Locke closed on the bill she asked if anyone else wanted to speak, noting she was looking for Chicken Little “because certainly the sky has fallen.”
“I hope that we would not allow our emotions to overdramatize the future,” Locke said. “We can torture the data until it confesses but that doesn’t make it true.
“And I’m certainly not one who’s about the business of harming the African-American community given that I’m a member of that community,” she added, following up on a comment from Stanley about potential harm to minority communities.
Report: online casino a fiscal net positive
Stanley noted the tax dollars go toward an education fund but called out the fact that the Virginia Lottery already funds education and offers its own online lottery games to adults 18 or older. Online casinos would cause the state to lose “hundreds of millions” of dollars from the lottery, he added. .
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found that the tax revenue from online casinos could hit $845 million by fiscal 2032. That estimate includes the negative impact to iLottery revenue.
Along with the taxes from 20% of online casino revenue, SB 118 would create an estimated $26.1 million in operator and platform license fees with $13 million in renewal fees every five years.
House bill awaiting third reading
While the Senate bill heads to the House, the House’s online casino legislation is awaiting a full chamber vote.
HB 161 passed out of the Appropriations Committee last week.
Tuesday is crossover day in Virginia, the last day a bill can move from its originating chamber to the other. The session ends March 14.
