30 years ago a bill was passed to tax winnings from slots and bingo and race track bets,but tables games were left out.Now as of 3/4/08 any tourny win over $5000 must be taxed 25%.Now is this the irs getting gready or is the usa in real desperate need of cash?
I feel sorry for the next WSOP winner lol good bye 3-4 Million dollars striaght off the bat.
A new law, but not much of a change. For those that have played Live Tourny Poker (and won), you will know that the majority of Casinos always made filing the IRS form W2g mandatory to collect winnings...the same form that racetracks, etc make you complete for a big win.
The Card Rooms were following a long ago agreement between Binions and the IRS, although the application of the agreement has been haphazard and subject to disagreement, so that some rooms were not issuing the Forms in certain corcumstances when other rooms were. Some poker rooms did not issue W2Gs for MTTs at all.
Add in the fact a lot of people didnt even pay the taxes after the form was completed and sent in to the IRS....
And the Govt decided it had to fix up the rules.
The whole tax issue on
gambling in the US is a bunch of POOP anyway and really can unfailrly screw the professional and recreational gambler