‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ potentially very bad for poker (players) in the US + STAY ON TOPIC!!

For tournaments, each tournament is standalone. You can (probably) sum all entries into a single tournament because you only have opportunity to win what that tournament offers. So multiple entries into one tournament, one session. Multiple simultaneous tournaments with single entry into each, multiple sessions.

For cash....

The IRS does not provide a single, all-encompassing definition of a "gambling session" in its official publications like a specific tax code or regulation. However, through court cases, advisory memorandums, and other guidance, a working definition has emerged. This concept is crucial for casual gamblers who want to net their wins and losses.

The general consensus from IRS guidance and court cases is that a "gambling session" is a period of continuous play at the same type of game in a single location.

Here are some key factors that determine a gambling session:

Continuous Play: A session starts when you place your first wager and ends when you make your last wager. Short breaks, such as for the restroom or a beverage, typically don't break a session. However, leaving for lunch or dinner would likely constitute the end of one session and the start of another.

Same Type of Game: If you play slot machines in the morning and blackjack in the afternoon, those are considered two separate sessions, even if they are at the same casino on the same day.

Single Location: If you play slots at one casino and then go to another casino, that is considered a new session, even if it's the same type of game on the same day.

Calendar Day: The IRS and courts have also indicated that a session generally ends at the close of the calendar day (midnight to 11:59 p.m.).

For recordkeeping, the IRS requires taxpayers to maintain a log or diary for each session. This log should include:

The date and type of gambling activity.

The name and address of the gambling establishment.

The amount of winnings and losses for that session.

The names of other people who were present.

It's important to understand that while you can net your wins and losses within a single session, you cannot net all your wins and losses for the entire year unless you are a professional gambler. You must report all of your winnings as income and then can deduct your gambling losses (up to the amount of your winnings) as an itemized deduction on Schedule A.

The IRS does not provide a single, all-encompassing definition of a "gambling session" in its official publications like a specific tax code or regulation. However, through court cases, advisory memorandums, and other guidance, a working definition has emerged. This concept is crucial for casual gamblers who want to net their wins and losses.

The general consensus from IRS guidance and court cases is that a "gambling session" is a period of continuous play at the same type of game in a single location.

Here are some key factors that determine a gambling session:

Continuous Play: A session starts when you place your first wager and ends when you make your last wager. Short breaks, such as for the restroom or a beverage, typically don't break a session. However, leaving for lunch or dinner would likely constitute the end of one session and the start of another.

Same Type of Game: If you play slot machines in the morning and blackjack in the afternoon, those are considered two separate sessions, even if they are at the same casino on the same day.

Single Location: If you play slots at one casino and then go to another casino, that is considered a new session, even if it's the same type of game on the same day.

Calendar Day: The IRS and courts have also indicated that a session generally ends at the close of the calendar day (midnight to 11:59 p.m.).

For recordkeeping, the IRS requires taxpayers to maintain a log or diary for each session. This log should include:

The date and type of gambling activity.

The name and address of the gambling establishment.

The amount of winnings and losses for that session.

The names of other people who were present.

It's important to understand that while you can net your wins and losses within a single session, you cannot net all your wins and losses for the entire year unless you are a professional gambler. You must report all of your winnings as income and then can deduct your gambling losses (up to the amount of your winnings) as an itemized deduction on Schedule A.

could just adjust your losses when logging sessions so that in the end you don’t pay more taxes

“the names of other people who were present” is unhinged

I don't ask others names. (As noted elsewhere, this is an AI generated quote and AI doesn't get everything correct.) There is no expectation to have the others names. But yes, I do carry around a diary to note each session details. Though now it is on my phone and I transfer to a DB/spreadsheet when at home.

I also deviate from the above and define a session as (semi) continuous time at the table w/o changing stakes as a session. IOW, if I play 8PM to 3AM, it is one session not 2. But since I file via a Sched C (ie, professional though I don't call fell I am a pro I do meet the guideline), the definition of a session is much less important. I can/do net it all.

I suspect that (breaking a poker session at midnight) is another subtlety that AI doesn't get exactly right. I can't asked my accountant because she is the only other client filing this way and neither of us has ever been audited. If one does, so will the other since we are MFJ.

Having hard and fast rules from IRS is generally not a good thing. Believe it or not, having some leeway is good because IRS agents are normally very reasonable in audits. If you, appear to have followed the rules or made a good faith effort, including making reasonable and supportable assumptions, they are fine. Might disallow something but will waive penalties.

Now if they find places you blatantly violated clear rules, hid income, or other evasive actions, all bets are off. You will have every line reviewed in great detail and every error or misstep will be fully penalized. And they will likely go back X years looking for those same or similar evasions.

Don't F with the IRS

Agree the name thing is ridiculous and I attribute it to AI misunderstanding (that was a quote from Gemini, likely get something similar but different, probably w/o the names part, from other models).

Sure you can "adjust" you losses. Or you can adjust your wins. That is what those not reporting at all are doing. They are just doing it to the excess.

Ofc, it is also called tax evasion. Now if you are not reporting $10,000 in net poker winnings for the year and you have $200,000 in other income, you probably won't get caught. But it is still tax evasion.

The higher the % of your lifestyle that comes from poker, the more likely you get caught. Plus if you are truly a long time cash pro with no other 'real' job, there is the whole SS and medicare issue.

The idea that you can break up cash games into sessions is complete ****ing nonsense. It's a bunch of arbitrary bullshit that leads to absurd accounting numbers wrt to taxation, which ultimately leads to vast swaths of poker players just straight up not reporting anything at all

Like I can put in a ten hour session on a Saturday, sit out a few minutes for breaks/bathroom/meals and just play while eating the meals. 1 session, right? But if I stop for...how long before it constitutes a separate session? 30 minutes? 60? 2 hours? Wtf...

Or what if I play ten MTTs across 4 sites? That's ten sessions bc it's ten MTTs? Why isn't it one session of me sitting down to play poker until I bust or place all MTTs for that sitting?

If a session is me walking into a casino, playing X hours, walking out, is that one session? To me, when I log in to a site, you could argue logging in begins a session and logging out ends it. It's all a bunch of arbitrary nonsense

But if I play 12 cash game tables across 3 sites 4 tables a site, what is that? 3 simultaneous sessions? 1 session? 12 sessions?

SNGs...every SNG is a session? That makes no ****ing sense if 1 SNG and 1 MTT is a session. Honestly wtf?

The full year itself should just be considered 1 session encompassing any and all games. Let everyone net out what they actually made in profit instead of taxing phantom income or making up bs definitions of a what a session is

I wont be playing online poker or sports betting if this is a thing next year. Close enough to AC to play cash once in awhile, for sports I guess I can use a bitcoin overseas one. The fear of not getting paid will be there but oh well.

This bill IMO hits high volume, low margin advantage players the hardest. A card counter’s income is obliterated. I’ve done a fair amount of sports betting over last 2 years. I can’t see how a person making significant income from say MLB can continue on without committing tax evasion. The margins are just too small.
Cash game poker has to be affected as well. I think Phil Galfond is basically right.
Gambling in the financial markets isn’t affected. They don’t call the markets the biggest casino in the world for nothing. It’s also interesting that casino’s and sports books aren’t subject to deducting only 90% of their losses (they lose lots of bets right?) and can expense like they always have when they fess up for taxes. That alone should tell you who his behind this change in the tax code.

I know the change came as part of budget reconciliation as a way to capture more revenue. I realize from a PR standpoint gaming corps say they want to change it. Do they really though? Ridding themselves of +EV advantage players has to be something they like. Reclaiming casino floor space that is used for poker to replace it with slot machines would also be appealing I would think.
The constituency of pro gamblers doesn’t have much political clout. Neither Rep Titus nor Senator Cortez-Masto sit on tax writing committees.

What are you even rambling about the NYTimes and CNN and me being a boomer?

I cited the official government bills on official government websites, aka primary sources relating to the issue at hand.

You're quoting a random, completely off topic Harvard polls about how young people are doomers.

Casinos have lobbies, teachers have lobbies, restaurants have lobbies, you wanna know why? Cause political action does actually work.

Saying "both sides are evil" may make you sound intelligent, smart, and above the petty details but in the end you will accomplish exactly none of your goals.

People are making up insane profiles of me for just citing some official primary sources. Pretending I'm some bushy eyed liberal who thinks Dems are innocent? Thinking I don't know about bigger issues outside poker because I'm the one actually staying on topic rather than bringing up polls of youths and the Iraq War that ended a decade ago?

I read 0 NYtimes and watch 0 CNN, I like reading primary sources, I imagine you're the one with some media influence if you keep jumping to talking points that are completely irrelevant.

People like you are hopelessly naive and clueless. People who get things done in this country identify what needs to be done and do it. People who are losers say "both sides are the same! everything's going to ****! we can't do anything" OR just as useless "we can't accomplish this small thing unless we also radically overthrow our entire government".

If our country has gone in a ****ed up direciton, it's precisely because of people like you who are hopelessly naive and clueless about how our government and political system operate and our more interested in trying to identify which "tribe" the other person associates with via media consumption patterns and starting a culture war over that rather than sticking ot the facts on the ground and what needs to be accomplished.

Moderation in this thread supposedly wants to stay on topic, I'm trying to tally which Congresspeople are voting for and against which bills will impact taxes on poker players, and you're bringing up the Iraq War and completely unrelated Harvard pools of Gen Z, and mods do nothing, great job.

Let's also acknowlwedge a final thing: if everyone was good at poker, you couldn't beat the rake. Its precisely that its filled with impressionable, non-that-intelligent people that end up falling for cults like MAGA that poker has been profitable for so long even despite the insane volume of training resources. And now those same people are still brainwashed that when their god literally completley ****s them over on a tax bill, after campaigning that he'd lower taxes, their best retort is "youre a boomer who watches CNN!"

The real reason people are still defending the MAGA leader that caused it is because all those guys are losing money at poker don't win at poker and thus don't pay taxes on their winnings.

You sound quite reasonable, precise and brimming with self-restraint.

Practically speaking though this won't do anything about +ev advantage players in casinos bc they're dealing in basically all cash. You'd have to be naive to think that for example card counters are accurately reporting all of their taxes.

It definitely hurts tournament poker players a lot.

The casino does not care about winning poker players, they don’t lose money to winning poker players, and regs are key to keeping games available for recs.

If the casino thought filling their poker room with slots instead would make more money, they would do it. It’s not as simple as increasing the volume of your highest margin offering increases profit. There isn’t infinite demand. Loss leaders like poker exist for a reason

For anyone not familiar, the user on here leon, has a VP Trip report thread that has been going for years and he posts all of his vegas trips, he plays high stakes VP and he has basically said this will kill his ability to continue to play VP.

From his VP Thread here was his post on these changes
"There's not even a question here- if this becomes the law of the land, no one with a clue should ever play on a machine that can generate a reportable tax event, ever. I will quit VP automatically and probably go to craps (the table games reporting is "fast and loose", shall we say).

Higher volume gamblers suffer more, of course, but at the end of the day winners AND losers are going to get drilled. Taxing what ultimately will be a net loss for 99% of all gamblers is beyond stupid.

And just to put some context in the numbers, my AGI the last decade has been in the millions, the vast majority from gambling. 5-10 MILLION in reported jackpots every year. So I'm supposed to pay tax on an additional 500k-1 million, EVEN if I lose? That's why it's a non-starter for me. No "gamble less". I'll just be done."

and another one of his posts

"Upon reflection, I'm sure the casinos want this. Who loses?

Pros. Poker players. People with a clue.

The average rec gambler probably takes a standard deduction. They were used to paying tax on all wins anyways (bc the only way to offset wins with losses is to itemize). So literally nothing has changed for them. Gamblers who itemize and deduct losses are by definition far more clued into the process and the concepts of high volume, low margin etc. I'm the perfect example. The casino at the end of the day doesn't really want someone like me, even though I'm a favorite to lose along the way. What they want are people far more clueless who are going to play slots with 15% -EV and have little to no clue how to milk the system.

So if the goal is to drive out pros and people with a clue, mission accomplished. Average moron literally doesn't think twice about the changes. I see a lot of parallels with this and the 6:5 blackjack, triple zero roulette, etc. The casinos pulled all that off because ultimately most people are idiots, and who did they lose? The smart/value conscious gambler. Who just gets replaced by another moron 2 sec later.

If the casino billionaires can be seen as contributing to the fake number make up on the bill, even better for them! How "good" of them.

Finally, here's a practical example of how I can get hurt. My numbers many years definitely fall in this range. I hit 500k in W2G and have a net loss of -10k. That means my gross loss would be 510k and I would deduct 500k on my tax return to offset. Once this goes into effect, I'd still have -510k gross loss, could only deduct 90% x 510 = 459k and I would have to pay tax on 41k. It's even worse if I win. The vast majority of my years I've been net winner/loser within 10k to 200k, with gross amounts in the millions. Guaranteed I feel this.

I suppose another way to look at this is, I'm someone that plays a -2% EV game. Turn that to -12% at minimum and I'm gone. Only way to truly offset is to "lose enough"- F that." - https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showp...

If that was the only outcome I'd probably agree with you, but that isn't the case at all. If you are a decent but small -EV sports gambler and you are betting a few thousand each weekend, on a good year you are breaking out around even and most years losing some money. But the house is raking in ~$20k a year just on your bets, plus your ass in the seat means you are shelling out for rooms, restaurants, ect. These are not people that the casinos want to drive away, but they are exactly the ones who are going to be disincentivized by this bill to keep it up. The same goes for slot players and every other degenerate who spends most of their time gambling. These high volume players are the the bread and butter for casinos. There are far, far more of these players than there are +EV advantage players.

Did this pass? I keep meticulous records of all gambling transactions as I pay full taxes on all of my winnings. If these despicable .gov ticks want to start sucking 10% on top of the larcenous rates I already pay, the whole thing esta yendo a otros lugares.

Welcome to the USA, now shut up and gamble here, instead of where they respect your business and money spent on travel expenses, restaurants, etc.

This will really hurt Las Vegas and the foreign tourism model.

Maybe time to short Las Vegas ?

So the tracking your sessions thing only applies if you're NOT filing as a pro?
Then what is all this fuss about tracking sessions?

People on here are claiming consistent +EV on VP. Color me skeptical.

Why wouldn’t the play be to not keep records?

How much trouble could you get in?

Just pay taxes on winnings for the year.

If you get audited there would be no way to recreate the records of sessions.

Basically , I gamble, I am too lazy to keep books, but I have x amount more than I started with aka winnings so here is your tax.

[URL="https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/108/las-vegas-lifestyle/ongoing-vp-tr-part-2-a-1822171/"]
I present evidence.[/URL]

Honestly, the Christian fundamentalists behind Project 2025 and this presidential administration want to restrict anything they see as "wrong," including gambling and porn. I’m sharing this because it’s relevant and true, and on topic. It’s tough to point to such a huge document that MAGA misrepresents and purposely keeps hidden (they don't reference gambling specifically, but harp on Christian morals, values, etc...), but you can see this happening in the video gaming world too. Payment processors are starting to censor content because of Project 2025. If you’d rather just cover your ears and eyes, that’s up to you. This is definitely MAGA policy, and honestly, it feels pretty intentional to me. After all, they did tell us the plan years ago.

I'm inclined to doubt this as, when it comes to actual policy, neither party acts on such principles and they care mainly about money and power. I'm sure they see the transfer of billions from ordinary people to wall street via ubiquitous gambling as a wonderful thing, as this the ultimate goal of 90% of politicians. I guess the mods don't want us to talk about politics as it pertains to this political legislation, but whatever.

I run pretty libertarian on vices but I would submit that if you think it's good for 12 year olds to have unfettered access to any kind of porn imaginable, and for people to have casinos in the palm of their hands 24/7, those are very extreme positions. I don't think you have to be a Christian fundamentalist to worry about the many negative consequences. Like, I think hard drugs should mostly be legal, but not in vending machines on every corner.

Anyway, if they wanted to go after this stuff I think there are a lot of common sense steps that they could take. My guess, which is just a guess, is that there would be a lot of popular support. For example, advertising it could be outlawed or heavily restricted, as with tobacco. The corporations could be liable for knowingly promoting addiction, as with tobacco. And I can't imagine why anyone would oppose going after fraudulent touts and the networks that present them as credible experts, like some 50s commercial where a doctor recommends smoking.

Sneaking in some little provision that over taxes a few pro gamblers and high rollers doesn't seem like an effective way for someone who has moral qualms about gambling to make policy. Pro gamblers are among the few people who benefit from this industry and they are helping the gambling industry by going after them.

Listen… facts are facts, no? This Project 2025, they want to stop the immoral things. Gambling, porno, all that. The law, she is passed. No more AP gambling. And now, also, the payment processor, they refuse to process for these porn games. Not just for the kids,for everybody.

And you admit, "yes, maybe we should gamble less" But then, in the next breath, you ask: "Should we be forced to parent?" Hah! I mean, really?

In the end, you go past DNegs now. He only said to increase rake. But you? You are in favor of tax the gambling and porn bans?

I don't think I said anything about gambling less or parenting. Are you trying to say that children being exposed to tons of porn is parents' fault so we shouldn't worry about it? Agree to disagree. A bit off topic.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that someone concerned about the morality of gambling would just target advantage players and leave it at that. 2 reasons. 1) 99% of them wouldn't even know what an advantage player is. 2) They are not the cause for moral concern. The concern is gamblers damaging themselves, those around them and society. It's not some guy middling NBA win totals.

Like if you have moral concerns about alcohol, you wouldn't pass legislation that exclusively targets fine wines. That's not what you are worried about. You are worried about some guy getting drunk and beating his wife or killing someone in a car accident. What our politicians have done on gambling is like raising the legal driving limit to .20 while making it illegal to have a wine pairing with dinner.

So what DOES this legislation do? I am not an expert. However, one thing it seems to do is help these giant gambling corporations that give money to politicians by ridding them of advantage players, especially on DFS, sports betting and casino sites. This does not seem to be a goal someone on a moral crusade against gambling would have.