Gov. Abigail Spanberger has vetoed Senate Bill 661, legislation that would have legalized skill games in Virginia, drawing immediate praise from Alexandria City Councilman Canek Aguirre, who had been sounding the alarm on the machines since his first term in office.
“I applaud and thank Governor Spanberger for her veto of Senate Bill 661,” Aguirre said in a press release on Saturday. “Skill games are predatory and consistently placed in lower-income neighborhoods. You never saw these machines going into country clubs or boutique spas and there’s a reason why.”
In her veto statement, Spanberger cited the rapid expansion of gaming in Virginia over the last decade and the state’s lack of a centralized, independent regulatory body to oversee it. She warned that passing SB661 would introduce thousands more machines into communities without a comprehensive regulatory structure in place…