Gaming the System

I had a personal friend lose his job programming a popular radio station and have to leave the United States in order to keep working because a record company representative took him to a New York Yankees game.

The New York state attorney general decided that crime was so well under control in the state that he made it his mission to round up this cabal of inappropriate influence over popular music, and he started by going after gifts to radio station programmers, not for future consideration.

Alan Freed had blown THAT business up in the ‘50s by thanking them for records that they had already played. “Plugola,” they called it, and the few radio announcers that corporate America still employs are made to sign a legal document promising not to do it and ceding any legal protection if they are caught.

I tell you this story because, here in Virginia’s General Assembly 2026 session, a bill was introduced to regulate online gaming. HB161 would have set up the business of online gambling under the regulation of the Virginia Lottery Commission, with the effect of building toward the establishment of a state gaming commission.

The bill was supported vigorously by the Sports Betting Alliance, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit trade association that represents sportsbook operators including Bet365, BetMGM, DraftKings, Fanatics, and FanDuel, with the stated purpose of promoting legal, regulated sports betting and iGaming nationwide.

Of course it was, but the bipartisan opponents of the bill were concerned with the lack of guardrails on the marketing efforts that would target smartphone users and create a scenario where, as Del. Tom Garrett said at the time, “we will have internet casinos on our phones, targeting Virginians to take part in an industry that in all other manifestation they need to go to a ‘brick-and-mortar’ facility to partake in.” Facilities that are governed with age and propensity limits, facilities that are, as the delegate pointed out, “not on our bedroom table.”

Supporters point to the existence of skill games and casinos in places like Danville and say that since these gaming apps already exist, “we should be taxing it.” I guess if that is the logic, then we should expect to be able to order marijuana over our phones as well. Too soon?

These are legal businesses, but the concern the opponents raise is the lack of protection from minors and the ease with which this addictive behavior could be accessed in exchange for tax revenue to the Virginia budget.

Mostly, though, opposition has been based on the fear that it won’t create new tax collections, just cannibalize taxes being paid by the brick-and-mortar casinos and the Virginia Lottery.

And about those supporters: Campaign finance reports just published by the Virginia Public Access Project show that campaign contributions to Virginia candidates from gaming industry organizations rose from just over $1 million in 2020-21 to more than $5 million in 2024-25 and that $3 million came from the Sports Betting Alliance.

Of that $3 million, $625,000 went to Speaker Don Scott and $300,000 to GOP Minority Leader Terry Kilgore. More coincidental than that, five GOP senators who broke with party leadership to vote with Democrats to advance the bill received $100,000 checks to their campaigns after the fact from the Alliance.

As the Virginia Public Access Project reports, these were the largest single corporate contributions to Sens. Christie Craig, J.D. Diggs, Emily Jordan, Todd Pillion, and Glen Sturtevant.

The Supreme Court says that campaign contributions from companies and trade organizations are protected speech. And I agree; they should be afforded the same constitutional protections if we are going to tax them like citizens.

However, as in the case brought by former New York Attorney General Eliot “Client No. 9” Spitzer, it was about disclosure of the influence, not the influence itself.

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