The thing about gambling is that you convince yourself that the truism “The House always wins” doesn’t apply to you. This is what gets gamblers in trouble. This is why the house always wins.
That is until the house starts losing.
Virginia has tied an awful lot of its future tax collections to gambling and marijuana sales.
On the latter, there are states like Colorado that have been selling marijuana for more than a decade and have always fallen short of the promised tax collections, which have been on the decline since COVID-19. The costs of treatment and law enforcement have continued to go up.
Will Virginia suffer the same fate? History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Such may be the case with casinos. Las Vegas is having big problems with tourism. August saw a 4.3% decline in visitors from August 2025, and 136,700 fewer visitors than in July. A Tuesday report from Harry Reid International Airport showed airport passenger counts dropped by 9% compared with August 2025. Let’s not even talk about Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Here in Danville, though, city leaders are already sweating as the owner of their brand-new casino, Caesars Entertainment, has already been sold to Fertitta Entertainment.
The tale of the tape is the $11.9 billion in debt Caesars is carrying as part of the $17.6 billion all-cash transaction.
That’s a lot of times that the house lost.
City Manager Ken Larking told Cardinal News that there will be no impact from the change of ownership regarding the city’s agreement with Caesars. “I’ve been told that all the leadership at Caesars that I work with will remain the same.” The same ones that were part of losing $11.9 billion? Comforting.
The caution here and from Colorado is that the promised tax largess that the voters believed would be coming when they approved these dens of inequity doesn’t materialize, while the cost of maintaining them and helping those who can’t handle their addictions keeps going up.
The people we elect tell us that additional sales taxes levied by our local governments should be sufficient to fix our schools. Cigarette taxes should pay for healthcare. Gaming taxes will pay for what, schools? The Virginia Lottery already tells us it takes care of that, partially. Police? Lowering the gas tax?
In a previous column, we detailed how much more money Virginia has this year than last year (14% more) and how the billions ($40 billion) of dollars that Virginia has in its budget are way more than when the state used to take care of maintenance at the schools. So the question remains, where did the money go?
If you are running a casino, the explanation is the cost of entertainment, the cost of insurance, the downturn in tourism, discount hotel apps, and that’s in a place known for tourism and big shows and glitz like Las Vegas.
If you work your way through the Las Vegas scene, you realize that there are ostensibly two companies that own most of the Strip: Caesars and MGM. So again, the question is, how do they lose money?
Analysts say that some of it is attributable to taking for granted that the gamblers will always be there. Ironically, very much like a state government looks at taxpayers.
Take a short walk down the Strip in another, much closer, location, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and you’ll see what was warned about at the beginning of Virginia’s fixation with gaming would quickly be our future.
What goes into the Danville Caesars when Caesars leaves? I’m sure it will be a casino of some sort, or maybe a skills-game parlor. Even if the Sadler family buys it, you know that the tax collections that the city and state had counted on (read: “already spent”) won’t be realized.
What about the money that’s promised through all the smartphone-based gambling apps? Just last month Delegate Tom Garrett (VA-56) told us that, “the patron said, we already have cell phone gambling in Virginia. We’re just looking to tax and regulate it. Well, you know, we’ve already got human trafficking in Virginia. We’ve already got rape, murder, and firearm robbery here in Virginia. Should we tax and regulate those too?”
Garrett added that one member explained his support for the plan by saying, “I’ve voted for skill games, so I have to vote for this” to which the Goochland Republican responded, “Really? Is there a skill game on your bedside table? Is there a skill game in your pocket?”
It doesn’t say anything good about a community that counts on its citizens to do things that damage their ability to live and prosper, cause families to be broken up and businesses to close, in order to collect tax revenue. One could call it almost counterintuitive since it causes more people to need government services.
But then again, the empire created by the original Caesar managed to hang around for quite a while. But I don’t think it was great for most of the citizens. Just the ones with friends in the Senate.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
