The proposed Virginia Gaming Commission would consolidate regulatory powers over gambling offerings throughout Virginia, including online gambling, charity gaming, bingo, live horse racing. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Oversight and enforcement gaps

The legal gaming industry in Virginia has seen record highs, but the industry is overseen by multiple state agencies, leading to oversight and enforcement gaps. Under a two-year plan before the newly created Joint Subcommittee to Study the Feasibility of Establishing the Virginia Gaming Commission, the proposed Virginia Gaming Commission would consolidate the regulatory powers over online gambling, charity gaming, bingo, live horse racing, fantasy contests, the state’s five licensed casinos, and ten licenses for Rosie’s Gaming Emporium. 

Should the proposed plan find approval, the Virginia Gaming Commission would be able to provide needed oversight for emerging gaming types, as well as to provide transparency for existing gaming to the public and the state governments.

there’s some areas where we can save the state a lot of money”

In an interview after a meeting on Wednesday, August 21, committee Chair Sen. Bryce Reeves (R-Spotsylvania) said: “There is internet gaming or electronic gaming that happens in the cloud, and we have three different agencies trying to manage that, so there’s some areas where we can save the state a lot of money… If you talk to prosecutors today, they don’t even know what they are looking at.”

Expanded gambling needs demand unified agency

Virginia’s anti-gambling stance softened in 2018, leading to $3.4b in wagers on state lottery games, charitable gaming, and traditional horse racing, which could potentially increase to $21b by 2025. Unfortunately, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission (JLARC) found that Virginia doesn’t have the resources to oversee the expanded gambling offerings.

As reported by the Virginia Mercury, a General Assembly subcommittee in 2021 found that “corruption in the state’s charitable gaming industry was rampant due to inadequate oversight and conflicts of interest.”

Unified agency will help

Sen. Reeves believes the time for a single regulatory body to oversee Virginia gambling is long overdue.

“We cleaned that up, and everybody learned some hard lessons,” Reeves said, referring to the previous charitable gaming industry corruption. “What we are trying to do here as legislators is that we don’t have the time or bandwidth to monitor all these different gambling institutions, that shouldn’t be our job. In the end we made a policy decision, it’s not a political decision, we are taking politics out of it.”

rather than making a cheese sandwich and saying you’ve got to eat it”

Reeves finished by saying: “This is the first time in 13 years that I have seen us take a proactive approach to government rather than making a cheese sandwich and saying you’ve got to eat it. It’s going to allow more people the opportunity to enter the process and to those setting it up a realistic timeline so it’s not so stressful. This is what I would call a good way to govern.”