A revived effort to repeal Virginia’s ban on so-called “skill games” failed to advance out of the Senate.

Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, last year sponsored a bill that proposed repealing a 2020 law that had reclassified the pay-to-play slots-style betting machines as illegal gambling, and instead tax them. The bill passed both legislative chambers but was vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin after the General Assembly voted down a slate of amendments Youngkin had proposed that would have kept the machines illegal throughout Isle of Wight and most of Surry counties due to their proximity to the Rivers Casino in Portsmouth and Colonial Downs in New Kent County.

This year, the attempt at legalizing the devices came from the other side of the aisle when Sen. Christie New Craig, R-Chesapeake, filed Senate Bill 1323, which proposed a $1,200 monthly tax on each device that would be paid into a new “Virginia Gaming Commerce Regulation Fund” that would distribute the revenue to fund K-12 schools. It stalled Feb. 5 in the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations.

The bill would have directed the Virginia Lottery Board to develop regulations by June 30, 2026, governing the registration and taxation of the machines and authorized the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Authority to grant provisional registration starting this year. It would have replaced the term “skill game” with “electronic gaming device,” defined as any machine requiring a coin, currency or token to play a game whose outcome is “determined by the predominant skill of the player” rather than pure chance.

It would have allowed localities to opt out of legalization by referendum and would have capped the number of registered gaming machines at 30,000 statewide, imposing a fine of up to $25,000 per unregistered device that, if enforced by a locality, would be paid into that locality’s general fund.

Isle of Wight only began enforcing the 2020 ban in January 2024 after a three-year legal battle ended in late 2023 with the state Supreme Court lifting an injunction against enforcement. Emporia truck stop owner Hermie Sadler, who ran against state Sen. Emily Jordan, R-Isle of Wight, in the 2023 Republican primary for her Senate seat, sued the state in 2021 just as the ban would have taken effect, arguing it gave an unfair advantage to the handful of casinos the state had authorized in Virginia’s larger cities. He’d secured the now-lifted injunction in Greenville County Circuit Court in 2022 with the help of Stanley, who acted as Sadler’s attorney.