Category Archives: Gambling

Can a California or Massachusetts Professional Gambler Take a Business Loss on His or Her State Tax Return?

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) eliminated the ability of a professional gambler to take a loss on his Schedule C based on his business expenses; Congress specifically overrode the Mayo v Commissioner decision. But what about state taxes? … Continue reading

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Tax Help for Gamblers

Jean Scott, the proprietor of the website “Frugal Vegas” (she’s also known as the “Queen of Comps”) called me last year and asked if I would be willing to assist her with the fourth edition of her book, Tax Help … Continue reading

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Online Gambling and Offshore Cryptocurrency Exchange Mailing Addresses for 2019

This list has been superceded by the 2020 list. With the United States v. Hom decision, we must again file an FBAR for foreign online gambling sites. An FBAR (Form 114) is required if your aggregate balance exceeds $10,000 at … Continue reading

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A Dutch Lament: Where oh Where Is PokerStars Located?

In a few weeks I’ll be publishing my list of where online gambling sites are located. A question that arose in the Netherlands is in regards to the location of PokerStars, the largest online poker site. An excerpt from my … Continue reading

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Gambling With an Edge Podcast

I appear on this week’s episode of Gambling With an Edge. We discuss the new tax law, and tax topics of interest to gamblers, including how the new higher standard deduction will negatively impact gamblers.

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Here We Go Again…

A few years ago I penned a post titled “Taxes and Daily Fantasy Sports: The Duck Test.” To remind everyone, If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it just may be … Continue reading

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Can a Professional Gambler Take the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion?

I was asked that question this past week: Can a professional gambler take the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion? The Exclusion allows one to exclude about $100,000 of income from income tax. The IRS website (which is quite good) has a … Continue reading

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The Real Winners of the 2018 World Series of Poker

Over the past two weeks 7,874 competitors (myself included) paid $10,000 to enter the main event of the World Series of Poker. Who would win the money? And how much of the winnings would they actually get to keep? One … Continue reading

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The FBAR Is *Not* Due Tomorrow

Most tax-related deadlines are on the 15th of various months. Income tax returns for individuals are due on April 15th; the extended deadline is October 15th. But just to have fun with us there are some exceptions. One of these … Continue reading

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Gambling with an Edge Podcast

I was the guest on this week’s Gambling with an Edge podcast. You can download the podcast here or on iTunes. The main point of discussion was the new tax law, but we covered some other topics such as bad … Continue reading

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