A 10% Tax on Your Fantasy Football, Baseball?
by Steve Haner,
Forget raising the income or sales tax, it appears the 2026 Virginia General Assembly may try to balance the state budget by imposing a new 10% tax on all the sports fantasy game players in the Commonwealth.
Just when you think you know all the nooks and crannies of state government, another surprise appears. Who else knew that Virginia had required registration of sports fantasy game operators (those offering prize money) since 2016? But proposed legislation will take that all to a new level, changing simple registration into full-scale regulation and heavy taxation.
This is about Senate Bill 129, filed by (now departing, it seems) Senator Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria. Ebbin is leaving at some point in the session to take a full-time job from new Governor Abigail Spanberger, but somebody else will pick up this bill. There could be some serious revenue produced by a 10% tax on all the gross receipts of these games.
The bill also replaces a modest agency registration fee with a mandatory $50,000 license fee, something else the operators will find a way to pass onto their customer-players. This all seems aimed at the large marketplace for sports fantasy games, but the definition is broad enough that this could expand. Is anybody organizing Dungeons and Dragons tournaments for cash? Once dollars are on the table, the government gets very nosy and greedy.
This looks and smells like plenty of other laws and regulatory structures already on the books pushed by the dominant players in an industry to discourage potential competition. The list of firms already registered in Virginia is dominated by the big gaming firms also heavy into direct sports gambling, already regulated and taxed by the state. This passes and the cost of entry alone will protect their turf, but some ominous criminal sanctions for the unlicensed included in the bill will add to their comfort zone.
The people who care more about this than I do need to take up the battle. But step one is to warn them the bill is coming, and that is now done. Take it viral, readers. As the tribes gather down on Ninth Street for our annual festival of greed and government intrusion, this rule remains in force: No one’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
