Advocates for a referendum to allow a casino in Tysons have a formidable ally in the General Assembly this year.
State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-34) is carrying the 2025 bill to add Fairfax County to Virginia’s short list of casino-eligible localities, taking over from Sen. Dave Marsden (D-35), who introduced legislation in 2023 and 2024.
Surovell tells FFXnow he long has been a proponent of permitting a casino in Fairfax County.
“I’ve been an advocate for increased casino gaming in Virginia ever since MGM opened their National Harbor casino in 2016,” he said by email. “… If Virginians are going to gamble, I’d prefer they do it in Virginia, so that Virginia and Fairfax County’s public schools can benefit from it, instead of Maryland and Prince George’s County.”
Surovell’s version is essentially unchanged from the bill that Marsden patroned last year, which was initially deferred to 2025 before getting formally nixed by a committee late last year. It similarly includes restrictions on where in Fairfax County a future casino could be located, effectively limiting it to an area around the Silver Line in Tysons.
If passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, the bill would permit, but not require, Fairfax County supervisors to schedule a referendum for voters to determine whether to authorize a casino.
While the bill doesn’t specify a site or operator, the developer Comstock Companies confirmed at a community forum last week that it’s interested in building an entertainment district with a casino on a parcel it controls at 8546 Leesburg Pike near the Spring Hill Metro station.
According to a flyer that’s been circulating among state lawmakers, urging them to support Surovell’s Senate Bill 982, Comstock hopes to incorporate the casino into a 6- to 8-million-square-foot mixed-use development that would also feature a 6,000-seat performing arts venue, a 600-room hotel, a convention center, retail and shopping, and housing.
If a referendum is called and ultimately approved by voters, the actual scale of Comstock’s project would depend on how much land around the Metro station it’s able to bring under its control. Other developers could also propose their own casino projects, competing with Comstock.
Echoing Marsden’s arguments, Surovell says the casino-anchored entertainment complex envisioned by Comstock would help Fairfax County diversify its revenue streams and fill a need for a venue that can handle large conventions.
“Fairfax County is larger than 8 states and has no ability to handle major conventions,” he told FFXnow. “This project would enhance tourism revenues which also takes pressure off Fairfax County’s homeowners, renters and small businesses.”
He says it would also create a large number of “well-paid and well-benefited” union jobs, both during construction and operation of the facility. Surovell’s proposed bill doesn’t include requirements that the eventual casino developer and operator institute labor protections, but union leaders in support of a casino have said they have an agreement with Comstock for its project.
The Board of Supervisors hasn’t taken a collective stand either for or against Surovell’s bill, but several individual members want no part of it.
“I’m all-in on defeating any state legislation to bring [a casino] to Tysons or anywhere along the Silver Line,” Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said in a newsletter to constituents last week.
“Tysons is Fairfax County’s economic engine and since 2010 has had a long-term, ambitious, community-consensus development plan that a casino would upend and derail,” Alcorn, who represents part of Tysons, said. “Once a casino opens in a Silver Line station area, it becomes a no-go zone for major employers. Let’s squash this dumb idea in 2025.”
Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman, whose district includes nearby McLean and the Herndon area, argued in a newletter that the newly proposed legislation “is actually worse” than previous iterations.
“It further restricts the County’s traditional land use authority in order to benefit a specific developer whose past failed promises Dranesville residents are familiar with,” he said, referring to the recent collapse of Comstock’s downtown Herndon redevelopment project.
Surovell’s bill currently awaits consideration in the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology, which is scheduled to meet for the first time this session at 11 a.m. on Wednesday (Jan. 15).
The initial state law permitting casinos in certain areas of the commonwealth limited the total number to five — in Portsmouth, Norfolk, Danville, Richmond and Bristol. After Richmond voters rejected a casino referendum in 2021 and again in 2023, legislation removing the capital city from the list was signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin last year.
If the General Assembly passes the Fairfax County casino bill, it remains to be seen whether Youngkin will sign it. Surovell says he hasn’t broached the topic with the governor, but Youngkin touched on the issue of gambling in his “State of the Commonwealth” address to the General Assembly this morning (Monday).
“Let’s focus our efforts this session on building a world-class regulatory body, and not on one-off bills pushed by special interest groups,” Youngkin said.
The governor expressed support for creating a Virginia Gaming Commission — a move that Surovell says he would also back. A bill to establish an independent commission to regulate all legalized gambling in the state has been proposed by Del. Paul Krizek (D-16), another Fairfax County legislator.
