Our principal role for Queen of Virginia Skill & Entertainment, makers of games at bars, restaurants and convenience stores, has been to generate or react to media coverage and share money with worthy non-profits across the state. It’s been rewarding work, given both the general success of the company and the controversy over the legality of skill games in Virginia. It’s kept us on our toes and being creative.
When the General Assembly decided in January to ban skill games, to thwart competition for the state lottery, horse racing and potential casinos, our team figured the government, if not the public, wanted nothing of the Queen. That lasted until April when the coronavirus hit, and money got tight. All of a sudden the Governor and legislators looked at what our skill games had generated and said, “we want some.”
So they gave us a year reprieve and slapped a $1,200 tax on each terminal, earmarking 84% of the money for a COVID-19 Relief Fund that the legislature would parcel out. 12% would go back to the localities that host our games.
In advance of the July 1 imposition of the tax, we at RCG had an idea. Let’s have Queen pay some restaurants that have our games, but whose business was off because of the pandemic, to make pizzas. And let’s take those pies to feed the staffs of some local nursing homes, which have done yeoman’s work keeping the virus away from residents.
Dubbing it “Pizza for Providers,” we started in Hampton Roads, our home base. To spread the wealth, we brought together seven Italian restaurants with 13 nursing homes and one hospital emergency room across seven cities. To pull it off on the same day and at the same time, we called upon everyone on our staff plus some free lancers and Queen employees to staff the locations and capture pictures and interviews. On the morning of June 3, Chicho’s, Amici’s, Azalea Inn and Anna’s cranked out several hundred pizzas and with the assistance of fire companies in three of the cities, and personal cars in the other four, we delivered the meals.
Several state and local elected officials, including the mayors of Portsmouth, Virginia Beach and Hampton, showed up as did local TV news reporters. The nursing home staffs were thrilled with the free lunch, the restaurants made some nice coin, and RCG demonstrated our skill at bringing partners together for a worthy cause.
In August, we did it again, this time in Central Virginia, arranging for restaurants in Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico to make pepperoni and cheese pizzas for employees at three nursing homes in each of those localities. Two TV stations and the local paper covered it.
We are now planning a Pizza for Providers in the western part of the state in September. The Queen is pleased because we helped the stores where the public plays her games, generated media interest and did it all on the cheap, pizzas being a popular and low cost menu item.
We figure the nursing home industry will likely earn a share of COVID-19 Relief Funds, which could total more than $100-million, much of it coming from Queen of Virginia. (In July, the tax generated almost $7-million from Queen games alone). The state could still choose to end Virginians’ ability to play our games in July 2021, but the Queen is hopeful the tax revenue and pizza lunches might convince the pols to put the ban on hold again.