Virginia iGaming, Fairfax Casino Bills Move to Senate Floor Following Committee Blessings
Posted on: February 11, 2026, 08:34h.
Last updated on: February 11, 2026, 08:34h.
- The Virginia Senate has fielded two gaming bills
- One bill seeks iGaming, while the other would allow a casino in Fairfax County
Bills in Virginia to allow iGaming and a casino in Fairfax County have moved to the full Senate floor after fielding adequate committee support.
On Tuesday, the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee lent its blessing to several gaming measures. The committee recommended the forwarding of Senate Bill 118, which seeks to authorize iGaming in the commonwealth, and Senate Bill 756, which seeks to designate Fairfax County as an eligible host for a casino.
The iGaming bill would allow Virginia’s brick-and-mortar casinos to pursue online casino privileges for an initial $500,000 fee. Annual renewals would be $250,000.
Each casino would additionally be granted the opportunity to partner with up to three third-party iGaming platforms, with those skins costing $2 million upfront and renewed yearly at $1 million. SB118 proposes taxing all iGaming revenue at 15%.
SB756 would authorize the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to conduct a competitive bid for a single land-based casino. After selecting a development, the proposal would go before county voters, where a local ballot referendum would need majority support before the Virginia Lottery Board could formally issue the project a gaming license.
SB118 and SB756 now move to the Senate floor for consideration.
iGaming Support and Opposition
Virginia’s current gaming operators have mixed opinions regarding online casinos.
The Cordish Companies, which is building Live! Casino & Hotel in Petersburg, is adamantly opposed. Churchill Downs, which operates slot-like historical horse racing (HHR) machines at The Rose Gaming Resort in Dumfries and seven off-track betting parlors, is, too.
Members of the National Association Against iGaming, Cordish and Churchill believe online casinos prey on addiction, increase financial harms, and threaten the highly regulated and taxed in-person casino industry.
Caesars Entertainment, Hard Rock, Boyd Gaming, and Rush Street Gaming, the respective operators of the casinos in Danville, Bristol, Norfolk, and Portsmouth, are generally supportive of iGaming. Those companies believe iGaming complements brick-and-mortar, and gives consumers who are currently gambling online through unregulated, black-market offshore casino websites a safe place to play.
Fairfax Amendment
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) is leading the Northern Virginia casino effort in 2026. Surovell thinks Virginia needs to place a casino in the affluent northern part of the state to capture the many millions of dollars in lost gaming tax revenue that’s presently flowing into Maryland.
Surovell says Fairfax also needs a revenue fix, as county income hasn’t kept pace with expenditures in the post-pandemic environment. In the county’s latest desperate attempt to find new revenue sources, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors imposed a 4% tax surcharge on all meals beginning Jan. 1, 2026.
Surovell and previous champions of the Fairfax casino legislation are in cahoots with regional real estate developer Comstock Companies. Comstock, lobbying state lawmakers with campaign contributions, wants the right to build a casino on property it owns next to the Adaire residential high-rise located between Spring Hill Rd. and Tyco Rd. at Leesburg Pike.
However, Patch reports that the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee stripped the language from Surovell’s bill that would have limited a casino in Fairfax County to that specific property.
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