Convenience Stores Will Continue to Flourish Without Skill Games

 Derrick Max, President and CEO, Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy 

 In a recent op-ed in the Roanoke Times, Dharmendra Patel argued Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s “skill game” amendments had created “incredible insecurity among small business” and that many businesses “anxiously wait to see if they will be able to keep their businesses open or be forced to close.” 

This issue has generated significant interest as hundreds of convenience store operators in their signature yellow “Keep Skills Games, Help Small Business” shirts filled every hearing and Assembly hallways. 

As the governor contemplates the skill games legislation that is back on his desk, it is helpful to review the industry claim, repeated by Mr. Patel, that skill games are essential to the survival of convenience stores in the commonwealth. 

Convenience stores have become a vital part of every community. There is one convenience store per 2,204 people in the United States. Their broad offerings, extended hours, and convenient locations generate an average of 1,491 transactions per day.