You can write off gambling loss?

Question

Someone was asking a question about taxes, and couple people made comments saying that you can write off your gambling loss. Is that correct? I never seen anyone ask for a "receipt" in a casino before.

Lets say you play poker. You enter 5 X $10,000 tournament. Your lose 4 but cash in 1 winning $50,000 You don't have to pay any taxes on the winning. Is that correct?

Answer 1

From http://www.taxgaga.com/pages/c-taxresources/gambling.html:

When it comes to gambling losses, the IRS is very strict. Every year they get taxes from people in which gambling income is shrinked down almost to nothing and the losses are skyrocketed. The IRS has a simple rule for gambling losses; you can only claim deduction on losses equal to or less than your winnings. For example, you win $300 and then lose $700 in gambling for a tax year. You can only claim up to $300 in losses, no more. The only good thing happens to be that IRS is not too particular about how you lost your money as long as it was gambling. If you won $300 in the lotto and you can claim any $300 that you lost at the casinos or horse races.

Another good reason for record keeping is that gambling income and losses are one of the favorite red flags the IRS looks for in auditing people. So have all your paperwork in order because you never know when the IRS is going to come for you!

Answer 2

Writing Off Gambling Losses

Answer 3

If your friend doesn't gamble for a living they can claim any loss up to the amount of their winning, but they have to report all their winning and have a log showing when an how much they gambled and their win and loss for each session. Also if you won even if the winnings are from illegal gambling you MUST report that as income. If you friend does have winning that are reported to the IRS, ie a jackpot or winning where they would send out a w2g or a 1099 and plays with a casino club card or some type (a rewards cards etc) then they can request a printout of their play and can use that in place of a log to show wins and losses, but it's much better to keep your own log.

Answer 4

How To Claim Gambling Losses

Answer 5

1

Answer 6

You can only write off a gambling loss if you had to
claim gambling winnings.... and only to the extent of
the win... You can't claim a win of $600 and a loss of
$2000... It doesn't work that way....Also, in order to
claim any gambling winnings and losses, you need to
keep a diary of any and every time you made a bet/
wager and the outcome of said bet. This is for IRS
purposes.

Answer 7

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
You can write off gambling loss?
Someone was asking a question about taxes, and couple people made comments saying that you can write off your gambling loss. Is that correct? I never seen anyone ask for a "receipt" in a casino before.

Answer 8

If you are a professional gambler and gambling is your ONLY source of income yes you can write off losses.

Big problem with this .If the casinos know that you are making a living off them they will bar you .Simple solution dont claim winnings .However winning a 1000.00 gets you an automatic tax slip from the casino.Rock and a hard place situation.Games like craps/ roulette they can't prove what you won and what you brought with you in the 1st place.

shooter

Answer 9

I have had winnings in a year that I would have had to claim the winnings on income taxes. I won and cashed out $10,000.00. When tax time came I claimed the $10,000.00 but then put down the EXACT SAME AMOUNT under losses, which would have brought my gambling winnings to 0. Believe it or not, I STILL had to pay taxes - about $350.00 on the money!

Answer 10

You can from your winnings, but you need to keep a record of all your gambling results. You don't need receipts in most cases, just a written gambling log of your sessions.