No dice: Casino referendum fails again

Richmond’s do-over casino referendum failed at the ballot box Nov. 7 by a much larger margin than the city’s first casino referendum did in 2021, as roughly 61% of Richmond voters rejected the proposed $562 million Richmond Grand Resort & Casino.

Leading up to the election, the casino’s corporate backers, Urban One and Churchill Downs, sank more than $10 million into advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts, including a free Isley Brothers concert next to an early voting polling place and free food truck meals for voters.

“We are proud to have run a community-centered campaign to create more opportunities for residents of this great city to rise into the middle class,” pro-casino PAC Richmond Wins, Vote Yes said in a statement after the referendum’s defeat.

With 72 precincts reporting, 39,768 Richmonders voted against the casino and 24,765 voted for it, a 61.62% to 38.38% margin, according to the Virginia Department of Elections. By comparison, the 2021 casino referendum failed by fewer than 1,500 votes, with 40,243 voters, or 50.95%, rejecting it.

With a budget just below $200,000, casino opponents made their cause visible with yard signs and letters to city residents, as well as an airplane flying over the Richmond Folk Festival in October with a banner reading “VOTE NO CASINO … AGAIN.”

“The people of Richmond have made the following clear: You can’t build a new city on old resentments. For too long, the politics of Richmond has been controlled by politicians and their allies who put their own self-interest before the public interest,” said Paul Goldman, a key casino opponent and former campaign manager for Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

In the immediate days before the election, controversy erupted as casino proponents were dogged by reports of antisemitic and racially insensitive speech on Urban One-owned radio stations in Richmond, leading to a guest host being banned and Urban One issuing a public apology.

Several prominent Richmond organizations endorsed the casino proposal, including ChamberRVA, the Metropolitan Business League, Richmond Region Tourism, the Richmond NAACP and several local union chapters.

The proposed casino would have included a 250-room hotel, a 3,000-seat concert venue and a soundstage where Urban One pledged to invest $50 million over 10 years. Casino backers estimated that the project would have created 1,300 permanent jobs and generated $30 million in annual tax revenue.

A longer version of this story ran online on Nov. 7.