The bill to allow a casino in Fairfax County has reemerged after nine days of negotiations with some significant changes from the version that passed the Virginia House of Delegates earlier this month.
The State Senate voted 22-16 today (Friday) to accept a substitute for Senate Bill 756 that would allow a temporary casino establishment in Fairfax before a referendum to permit a permanent development goes to voters.
Virginia’s Major Employment and Investment (MEI) Project Approval Commission would be granted the authority to approve the selection and operation of the temporary casino, which could operate for up to five years or until the county selects its preferred operator for a permanent establishment.
All gaming tax revenue generated by the temporary facility would go to Fairfax County Public Schools under the substitute bill presented by Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-34), who has led the push to add Fairfax County to Virginia’s list of localities eligible to host a casino.
If a permanent casino is approved by voters, the resulting tax revenue would be split evenly between the state and local governments, but Fairfax County would be required to use its share to fund K-12 public schools.
“It’s designed to incentivize the locality to cooperate and work on coming up with a proposal in this process because of the revenue split,” Surovell said when explaining the substitute on the Senate floor, noting that the added provisions for a temporary casino would apply only to Fairfax County, not any other localities.
Surovell, who represents southeastern Fairfax County, was one of three senators to work on the substitute bill in conference with three delegates after the General Assembly’s two chambers both passed different versions. Among the other conferees was state Sen. Dave Marsden (D-35), who had unsuccessfully championed a similar bill allowing a Fairfax County casino in 2024.
In addition to the allowance of a state-approved temporary casino, the substitute revives criteria limiting potential casino sites to Tysons that had been stripped out of an earlier version of SB 756 that passed the state Senate on Feb. 13 as well as the version that passed the House on March 4.
The casino would be required to be part of a mixed-use development with at least 1.5 million square feet of space near a Silver Line Metro station in Tysons, but the substitute doesn’t include language from the House version of the bill mandating that the future developer to construct, fund or dedicate land for a public safety facility.
State Sen. Jennifer Boysko (D-38), who represents Herndon, Reston, McLean and Great Falls, blasted the bill as undermining the process established for other localities where a casino has been authorized and warned that the proposal is “extraordinarily unpopular” among northern and central Fairfax residents as well as the local elected officials who represent them.
“What we are doing here, just be very, very clear, if you would like one of us to bring in a piece of legislation that puts something extraordinarily unpopular in your community, this is opening the door to that,” Boysko said, urging her colleagues to vote against the bill. “This is not the process we have agreed upon in the Commonwealth, where we are working to make Virginia better.”
Sen. Barbara Favola (D-40), who represents Arlington, questioned why proponents have been so insistent on pushing through the casino bill despite vocal local opposition.
“If this is about raising money for the state, there are other ways we can do this,” she said. “There are ways we could do this that doesn’t trample on the rights of local government. There are ways we could do this that don’t create addictive behavior. There are ways we could do this that respect our neighborhoods, the safety of our neighborhoods, the nice ambience that we want for all the kids and shoppers and tourists that come to Northern Virginia.”
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors narrowly voted in December to oppose any casino legislation that it doesn’t request.
Though various iterations of SB 756 included concessions intended to address the board’s concerns, particularly the current 70-30 split in tax revenue between the state and locality, Chairman Jeff McKay told multiple news outlets this week that he wouldn’t order a referendum on whether casino gaming should be allowed in Fairfax and would advocate for Gov. Abigail Spanberger to veto the casino bill.
McKay’s comments, however, came without seeing the new substitute, which includes a more even split, and Surovell noted that Fairfax County has spent years advocating for the state to grant it more education funding and more flexibility in how it raises revenue.
“The county needs these revenue sources. They’ve been asking for it,” Surovell said. “I would ask that we give them what they’ve been asking for for the last 30 years. Give them an additional revenue source, and if they don’t like it, voters vote it down and this thing goes away in five years.”
Fairfax County’s state delegation was split on the vote to accept the conference substitute, with Jennifer Carroll Foy (D-33) and Stella Pekarsky (D-36) joining Surovell and Marsden as supporters and Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-39) and Saddam Azlan Salim (D-37) joining Boysko in opposition.
With the General Assembly scheduled to adjourn its 2026 regular legislative session tomorrow (Saturday), the new version of SB 756 has a limited time to pass both the Senate and the House of Delegates before it goes to Spanberger, who can sign, veto or amend the legislation.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn, who led the push to have the county board formally oppose Surovell’s bill, said in a statement that the legislation “just got much worse” due to the latest changes.
“Any legislature that forces a casino on a community that does not want it is playing with fire,” Alcorn said. “Our state motto is ‘Thus Always to Tyrants’ and our legislators should remember that. Hopefully members of the House of Delegates will.”
