Legislative Push for Casino in Tysons Corner, Virginia Is Back on the Table

After an unsuccessful attempt to get a casino bill passed in Northern Virginia last year, the mantle has been handed to a more powerful political ally in Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell.

Let’s take a closer look at Scott’s support on the bill and its potential impact on top-rated sportsbooks.

Rolling the Dice

Last year, state Senator David Marsden sponsored Senate Bill 675 to bring a casino to Tysons Corner in Fairfax County, Virginia. However, the Senate Finance & Appropriations Resources Subcommittee voted 4-0 to carry the bill over until the next legislative session, which has now arrived 11 months later.

At the time, Marsden justified his bill by saying, “Because of the pandemic, which hit us hard, Fairfax County is losing a lot of commercial real estate income, and the decline in Metro ridership has added greatly to the burden. I think it’s time to send this to the local government for them to make their own analytics, make their own decisions about this, weigh the pros and cons, and decide whether they want to have a referendum.”

However, this time the lawmaker taking the lead is Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, who has sponsored a similar bill, Senate Bill 982, that he is hoping will assuage the naysayers and build a coalition that will usher in a casino gaming bill that, if passed, will allow a countywide referendum for the residents to ultimately decide at the ballot boxes.

Regional real estate developer Comstock Companies would be the developer of choice on what is expected to be a massive $6 billion project with a casino occupying less than 5% of what would also include a hotel, apartments, retail spaces, restaurants and bars, outdoor public greenspace, and an immersive theater. The company has stated it would need a gaming partner to operate the casino, one that many believe has all the markings of a Wynn Resorts facility.

The Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology will take this most recent casino effort up for consideration before it advances any further.

Security Breach

The opposition to a Fairfax County casino complex includes:

• The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
• A number of homeowners associations.
• Local municipality governments.
• Former members of the Central Intelligence Agency.

CIA headquarters, located in Langley, Virginia, are located roughly five miles (as the crow flies) from the site of the proposed Tysons Corner casino project, and more than 100 former members of the intelligence community have signed a letter that states national security would be threatened by a gaming facility.

The letter from a group called National Security Leaders for Fairfax read, “The proximity of a Tysons casino to a significant population of government, military, and contract officials with access to highly secretive government intelligence, diplomatic, and defense information will not only attract organized crime—casinos always do—but also adversarial intelligence services looking to recruit those with such access whom they hope to blackmail.

“With the Washington D.C. area having the greatest concentration of the most sensitive security clearances in the country, we urge you to immediately and categorically reject the proliferation of gambling establishments in Northern Virginia, and at Tysons in particular, as posing an unacceptable health and national security hazard, whose socioeconomic costs significantly outweigh any short-term increase in revenue.”

The letter was sent to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, and the Virginia General Assembly. There has been no official response as of this writing.