A Senate finance meeting in Richmond got heated Tuesday morning as Governor Abigail Spanberger’s Secretary of Finance faced hard questions from Senators about revenue missing in the state’s budget. Could new taxes on gambling and gaming, all but dead legislatively, fill in the gaps?
A representative for Governor Spanberger said during the 2026 session there would be no new gaming before a new state commission to regulate it was established. But efforts to create that commission failed. Meanwhile, revenues from new gaming were included in both Senate and House budgets.
Now, facing concerns over revenue shortfalls, Charlottesville Senator Creigh Deeds asked this at Tuesday’s Senate Finance meeting: “You’ve taken skill games off the table… what’s on the table?”
Skill games and Fantasy sports accounted for about $265 million in the House budget - notably fantasy sports were approved. But with skill games out there’s still millions missing.
Virginia’s budget process is a negotiation, and the breadth of what they can do in the budget is wide, even bringing back dead bills.
During the pandemic a ban on skill games was given a reprieve to collect additional tax revenue, and it did: $130 million went to the state according to industry representatives.
Efforts to legalize skill games floundered in the years that followed, but in 2025, one such effort, carried by Virginia Beach Democratic Senator Aaron Rouse, was placed entirely in the budget. But that effort was removed before the budget was signed.
Both examples show the legislature is unafraid to use gambling as an emergency revenue source, even if it’s just a part of negotiations.
When asked whether he’d be interested in trying to once again legalize skill games through the budget, using the bill Spanberger vetoed last week, Rouse said Tuesday he wasn’t ready to say: “I’m not sure, we don’t have a budget yet.”
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, whose effort to open a casino in his Northern Virginia district was vetoed by Spanberger, when asked if gambling efforts like that casino could be brought back in the name of state funds:
“We haven’t talked as a caucus about how to deal with anything she’s proposed or how to respond to it, but that’s an option,” he said before Tuesday’s meeting.
Ask if Surovell thought Spanberger’s disinterest in gaming was a negotiation tactic: “I don’t know.”
For those on the right, longtime budget negotiator and Botetourt County Republican Delegate Terry Austin said negotiations between the two chambers is par for the course.
“I mean, certainly revenues are looked upon favorably, more so than expenditures," Austin told Radio IQ Monday. "So, I wouldn’t rule anything out right now.”
And Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle expressed concerns about legislating in the budget.
“I’m never surprised to see legislation showing up in the budget, it’s bad policy,” he said. “Even things that I like, we should not be legislating in the budget.”
He also pointed to $700 million in extra revenue he said the state could still tap in to.
“We’ve got a lot of extra money,” McDougle said.
Back at Senate finance, former Delegate Mark Sickles, who is now Spanberger’s Secretary of Finance, suggested the solution was getting everybody in a room for negotiations.
“If conferees met, started going line-by-line, I think we could come to some resolution or compromise,” he said.
“Without new revenue?” Deeds pressed.
“I think the administration might be open to new revenue sources,” Sickles said.
After the meeting, Deeds said both chambers’ budgets faced issues, but he pointed to former Governor Glenn Youngkin budgeting as the start of the problem.
“The Youngkin budget as introduced was not balanced structurally," he told Radio IQ. “The House fixed it with skill games, and the governor took that way… if you’re going to take away one revenue source, what are you going to replace it with?”
“Everything is still up in the air,” Deeds added when asked about the future of skill games legalization in the budget.
As for the skill game industry, they welcome the chance to add to the commonwealth’s coffers.
“We trust the legislative process and are committed to working in good faith with lawmakers and stakeholders,” said Rachel Albritton with Pace-O-Matic, one of the developers of skill games seen in Virginia. “Done correctly, a regulated and taxed skill games framework could generate roughly $350 million in revenue while providing clarity and stability for small businesses across the Commonwealth.”
But Fairfax-area Democratic Delegate Paul Krizek, another budget negotiator who carried the now-dead Gaming Commission bill, was less interested in the idea.
“Everything is on the table,” he said in a text Tuesday before adding: “BUT it’s not a poker table.”
