Va. casinos report $57.3M in Feb. revenue

Gaming revenues from Virginia’s three casinos totaled $57.3 million in February, according to Virginia Lottery data released Friday.

The Bristol Casino: Future Home of Hard Rock temporary facility opened July 2022, making it Virginia’s first casino. The Virginia Lottery Board approved HR Bristol’s casino license in April 2022. Last month, the Bristol casino generated about $11.67 million from its 911 slots and about $1.67 million from its 29 table games, for a total of about $13.3 million in adjusted gaming revenues (wagers minus winnings).

Rivers Casino Portsmouth opened in January 2023, becoming Virginia’s first permanent casino. The lottery board had previously approved its license in November 2022. In February, the Portsmouth casino reported about $25 million in AGR, of which about $18.2 million came from its 1,468 slots and the remaining roughly $7 million from its 81 table games.

The temporary Caesars Virginia casino in Danville opened in May 2023, after receiving its casino license in April 2023. In January, Caesars Virginia held a topping-off ceremony for the 12-story hotel that will be part of the permanent resort casino slated to open late this year. The casino reported about $13.98 million from its 808 slots and $4.75 million from its 33 table games, totaling about $18.7 million.

February’s casino gaming revenues were an almost 8.5% increase from the $52.86 million reported in January.

Virginia law assesses a graduated tax on a casino’s adjusted gaming revenue. For the month of February, taxes from casino AGRs totaled $10.32 million.

The host cities of Portsmouth and Danville received 6% of their respective casinos’ AGRs: about $1.5 million and $1.12 million, respectively. For the Bristol casino, 6% of its adjusted gaming revenue — about $800,800 last month — goes to the Regional Improvement Commission, which the General Assembly established to distribute Bristol casino tax funds throughout Southwest Virginia.

The Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund receives 0.8% of total taxes, which was almost $82,570 last month. The Family and Children’s Trust Fund, which funds local family violence prevention and treatment programs, receives 0.2% of the monthly total, about $20,640 in February.

One other casino is currently underway in Virginia: the $500 million HeadWaters Resort & Casino in Norfolk. The developers — a partnership between the King William-based Pamunkey Indian Tribe and Tennessee billionaire Jon Yarbrough — submitted new plans to the city, aiming to start continuous, rather than phased, construction in spring 2024.

The Norfolk Architectural Review Board is the first body to review plans in the approval process, which ends with the Norfolk City Council. The board was set to review the new plans in January, but the developers have continued the review indefinitely.

“The Pamunkey Tribe has continued to work diligently with its architecture and engineering teams to produce the additional design work necessary to address the direction provided by [Norfolk] City Council. Until that work is completed, we have asked for a continuance before the ARB,” Jay Smith, spokesperson for HeadWaters Resort & Casino, said in a statement after the Architectural Review Board’s Jan. 22 meeting.

“As soon as we are confident that the plans meet the needs of the city and Tribe, we will ask to be put on the ARB agenda,” Smith said in the statement. “We know so many residents of Norfolk share our eagerness to open HeadWaters Resort & Casino, and once design is completed, we will employ an aggressive construction schedule to bring this project to life.” The casino must obtain its license from the lottery board by November 2025, or the 2020 referendum becomes null and void under state law.

Following Richmond voters’ rejection of a proposed $562 million casino for the second time, Petersburg lawmakers sought to hold a referendum in their city. A bill that would replace Richmond with Petersburg on the list of cities eligible to host a casino in Virginia has passed the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates, but the House added an amendment that requires a second vote on the bill during a “subsequent regular or special session,” so the bill is stalled for now. A second bill that would have given Fairfax County a casino referendum has also been tabled until 2025’s session.