The Old Dominion State cassino eyeshade signed into jurisprudence by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in 2020 allowed Phoebe cities to deliberate authorizing a commercial message gambling casino development to acantha economic activity. group A forthcoming supplemental slice of legislation seeks to add a 6th qualifying town.
Virginia’s casino travail is trim towards serving struggling cities opposite their fortunes. Voters in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Bristol, and Danville passed local referendums inwards November of 2020 approbatory a cassino apiece in their cities.
Richmond voters were forced to wait a year because of city officials fielding richly interestingness from cassino parties. Richmond eventually picked a $565 1000000 auction pitch from Urban One, a in public traded, Black-focused media empire based in the DC area. Dubbed ONE Casino + Resort, the project targeted vacant ground to the south of the downtown country nigh the Prince Philip Esther Morris grounds.
However, Richmond voters in Nov of 2021 rejected the gambling casino proposal. State Sen. Joe Morrissey (D-Richmond) says he will shortly acquaint legislation that seeks to reserve voters inward nearby Petersburg Campaign to deal whether to welcome the casino license originally allocated for the upper-case letter city. Petersburg is situated roughly 20 miles southward of Richmond,
Though Petersburg did not come across the qualifying conditions below the 2020 Old Dominion gambling casino bank bill – which included legion(p) economical and societal qualifiers, such as experiencing a universe wane of at least 20 percent from 1990 to 2016 – Morrissey believes allowing the metropolis to boniface the cassino would benefit the entire region.
Petersburg Mayor Samuel Parham has verbalised his reenforcement for Morrissey’s legislative ambition. “It canful transmute the City of Petersburg,” Parham said of a possible cassino finally month.
Richmond Block
Morrissey says his gaming bill, if passed and signed past incoming Republican River Gov. John Herschel Glenn Jr. Youngkin, would additionally keep Richmond from holding a s local cassino vote. Morrissey has been an outspoken critic of Richmond City Councilmember Reva Trammell pushing a resolution to give another local cassino referendum during the November 2022 midterms.
Richmond residents narrowly rejected Urban One and developing partner Peninsula Pacific Ocean Entertainment’s cassino entreat by a 51-49 percent vote.
That’s non the democratic process. Reva Trammell should live better,” Morrissey opined this hebdomad of her question to conduct another tally. “I’m a small disappointed. i expected to a greater extent from her.”
Trammell argues that capital of Virginia voters on the southside doh require the casino, but their voices were diminished by crisply divided racial and geographical voting lines. Exit polling concluded that lily-white voters in Richmond’s more loaded neighborhoods due north of the St. James River voted 2-1 against ONE Casino + Resort.
“I’m doing what my people have asked me to do,” Trammell told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in response to Morrissey’s comment. “I don’t cognise why Joe would say that. He knows how speculative people wanted it.”
Potential Pushback
Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins says his companion is stock-still seeking to take the fifth and final potency commercial-grade cassino license inward Virginia. But after the capital of Virginia vote, the under-development casinos inward Norfolk and Portsmouth could engage in a lobbying crusade to cube Petersburg from being considered.
Economic analysts say the 2021 capital of Virginia casino voting was a major win for the Lionel Hampton Roads cassino projects. Bob McNabb, an economics professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, says not having expansion slot machines and table games inward capital of Virginia testament land more gamblers from the capital letter tube southeast to Norfolk and Portsmouth.
Norfolk voters approved a $500 1000000 cassino and holiday resort called HeadWaters that testament follow located adjacent to the Harbor Park small-scale league baseball stadium. The commercial projection comes from Virginia’s Pamunkey Red Indian Tribe and gaming industry billionaire Jon Yarbrough.
Portsmouth is partnered with Benjamin Rush Street Gaming, a Chicago-based troupe that is constructing a $300 one thousand thousand casino called Rivers Casino Pompey next to Tidewater region Community College.