A study group convened by the Virginia Lottery Board will soon decide on Virginia Senate Bill 579 (SB579), a proposed bill that could ban online sweepstakes casinos in Virginia in 2027. The group has until December 1, 2026, to decide on the draft legislation.
Earlier this year, the Virginia Senate Committee on Courts of Justice voted 14-1 to create the study work group, which includes officials and gambling industry experts. The group includes members of the sweepstakes casino industry.
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Virginia study work group on sweepstakes casinos
The Committee on Courts of Justice decided on February 11, 2026, to punt SB479 to 2027. The group, which gathered to study the issue, will make key decisions over the next few weeks as it heads into the 2027 legislative season.
The group was tasked with creating a report by December 1 that would discuss how online sweepstakes function as marketing tools. The report will also compare dual-currency social casino sites with real-money online gambling.
They are also supposed to devise a legal definition of online sweepstakes games with Virginia Commonwealth laws in mind.
Details of Virginia Senate Bill 579 (SB579)
When State Senator Bryce Reeves introduced Senate Bill 579 in January 2026, it proposed defining online sweepstakes casinos that use dual-currency systems as illegal gambling.
The bill specifically targeted sites that offer casino-style gambling using slots, table games, crash games, video poker, and sports betting. To be considered illegal gambling, they also had to award cash prizes based on these games of chance.
SB579 specifically targeted the virtual currencies used on sweepstakes sites.
Civil penalties under Senate Bill 579
Instead of criminal charges, Senator Reeves’s bill called for steep civil penalties between $10,000 and $100,000 for each violation. The committee heavily amended this approach.
The two sides could not agree on enough details for it to pass a committee vote, so they authorized a study with a view toward 2027 legislation. The substitute bill called on the Virginia Lottery Board to study the issue.
2027 Virginia legislative process
Like most states, lawmakers pre-file draft legislation for the next year’s session sometime during December. When the new Virginia Senate convenes on January 13, 2027, lawmakers and their staffs will have had nearly six weeks to study the legislation.
The question is whether the study group will recommend an outright ban, as Reeves wants, or move towards a less harsh set of regulations. They might recommend civil penalties, regulation, or taxation.
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Who is on the Virginia sweepstakes casino study work group?
The exact makeup of the work study group has not been released. The Virginia Lottery’s Executive Director, Kevin Hall, is noted as the group’s leader.
The legislation mandated the Virginia Lottery Board to include three types of members. The first group includes industry representatives, including executives and legal counsel of prominent online sweepstakes and social gaming sites.
The second group includes casino stakeholders from Virginia’s brick-and-mortar gambling industry. The third group includes state regulators, especially officials and legal staff from the Virginia Lottery’s Gambling Compliance Division.
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