Virginia Could Be Getting Even More Sportsbooks in 2021

New Legislation

A new bill has been proposed in the Virginia General Assembly that would seemingly increase the number of possible sportsbooks in the state. This is because it aims at increasing the number of available skins, or sports betting licenses, that can be held.

The main meat and potatoes of this bill is to no longer count the casinos themselves against the maximum. Currently, this could free up to 12 licenses in the state. Obviously, this would be massive news as it would allow more online and out of state sportsbooks to join the Virginia betting market, allowing bettors more choices, more competitive odds, and overall to have a better betting experience.

Current Sportsbook Situation

As of right now, there are 12 available licenses, and at least 25 operators applied for those licenses. The Virginia Lottery was then tasked with figuring out how to distribute these licenses, and it has stayed rather hush about the process as well as who has received them.

The news will come out quickly, though, as the State Lottery plans to launch betting before the Super Bowl, which, barring a massive corona outbreak on a competing team, should happen on February 7th. Anytime before then, we could see the launch of online sports betting and see what bookmakers the users in Virginia will have to play with.

Obviously, with so many applications but less than half the amount of licenses, several legitimate and great operators were cut from getting a permit to operate in the state. This is a shame as those operators would not only force a more competitive odds environment but simply would offer something different for the bettors of Virginia.

Can This Bill Pass?

There is a lot of hope that this bill will get through and change the current market makeup in Virginia. While it is simply in the first stages of the lawmaking process, it has backers, and it has good intentions behind it. According to the Virginia Lottery in quotes provided by SportsHandle.com, this bill could take effect this year on July 1st, 2021, if passed quickly by the State House and State Senate.

Whenever a bill is this early in the cycle, you have to be cautious. However, this bill not only seems needed, based on the interest from bookmakers to operate in Virginia but also has a lot going for it both from the public’s eye and the legislatures in the State Assembly.

Downsides to More Operators

Really the only issues with having more operators are overseeing costs and too competitive of odds pricing.

Each one of these operators has to be regulated by the Lottery, which will stretch the budget thin as it looks to regulate and handle issues with more operators in the state. Audits, license renewals, and more will be on the Lottery’s plate with every sportsbook operator added.

While odds pricing can be great for customers, this can lead to less profit for sportsbooks and maybe some dropping out of the state. The other issue is as the cost of acquisition with more competition goes up, and the revenue goes down due to more competitive odds, this leads to the state making less money. The State is taxing based on revenue, and if there is less of a margin for that revenue, then the state simply makes less money from this pipeline. However, it can be easily argued that more sportsbooks will bring in more bettors and offset this loss.