{"id":37052,"date":"2025-07-04T03:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T03:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/37052\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T03:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T03:43:10","slug":"gamblers-say-big-beautiful-bill-may-force-them-to-fold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/37052\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamblers say \u2018Big, Beautiful Bill\u2019 may force them to fold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professional gamblers say President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cBig, Beautiful Bill\u201d is a bad bet. Deep inside the fiscal measure adopted Thursday, July 3<\/a>, is a provision that limits income-tax write-offs for gambling losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cYikes,\u201d professional poker player Phil Galford<\/a> wrote on X. \u201cSenate amendment to the Big Beautiful Bill=you get taxes on more than you earned from gambling, even if you netted $0 (or less!).\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"QR<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDownload the SAN app today to stay up-to-date with Unbiased. Straight Facts\u2122.\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPoint phone camera here\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cPoker as we know it is under attack in America,\u201d another player, Doug Polk<\/a>, said on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this bill passes, it will be a gigantic step backwards for the gambling industry,\u201d Polk said. \u201cAnd the majority of the people who play for a living today will not be able to do so moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taxing \u2018phantom\u2019 winnings<\/p>\n

The gambling provision \u2013 six paragraphs in a 940-page bill \u2013 amounts to a $1.1 billion tax hike<\/a> through 2034, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n

\t\tUnbiased. Straight Facts.TM<\/p>\n

The \u201cBig, Beautiful Bill\u201d containing President Donald Trump\u2019s spending priorities reduces the amount of gambling losses that are deductible for tax purposes. The change will amount to a $1.1 billion tax hike through 2034.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is really ugly (or, to use one of President Trump\u2019s phrases, bigly ugly) toward gambling,\u201d Russell Fox, a poker player and licensed tax professional from Las Vegas, wrote on his blog, Taxable Talk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under current tax law, professional and amateur gamblers alike may deduct 100% of their losses from their winnings to determine their tax liability from wagering. However, the Senate\u2019s version<\/a> of the budget bill limits those deductions to 90%. The amendment was one of numerous efforts to offset the $3.4 trillion<\/a> the bill is projected to add to the federal deficit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to many clients, and they\u2019re very concerned,\u201d accountant Zachary Zimbile told Bloomberg. \u201cIf you add a 10% penalty, it\u2019s going to eat into a lot of their profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox, the tax professional and poker player, says what might seem like a small change will have major tax implications for professional gamblers.<\/p>\n

For example, he said, a gambler who won $100,000 in a year and lost an equal amount would be taxed on $10,000 in what he called \u201cphantom\u201d income.<\/p>\n

The impact will be far greater on big-time gamblers, Galford said. He once won $1.6 million in a single day playing poker, according to Analyze Poker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a video<\/a> posted to X, Galford said a gambler who won $5.2 million in a year and lost $5 million, for a net income of $200,000, would pay taxes on actual winnings plus 10% of the losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would make $200,000 during the year,\u201d he said. However, \u201cyou would pay tax as if you made $700,000, meaning in almost everybody\u2019s case you would pay more tax than you made during the year. Completely untenable. You can\u2019t be a professional gambler in the U.S. if this goes through.\u201d<\/p>\n

$72 billion in bets<\/p>\n

The change in tax policy comes amid a boom in legal gambling in the United States.<\/p>\n

Americans placed a record-high $72 billion in bets<\/a> in 2024, up 7.5% from the previous year, according to the American Gaming Association. The figure includes wagers on sporting events, bets at casinos and online gambling.<\/p>\n

In a statement to Straight Arrow News, the association commended congressional leaders on passage of the bill and said the measure would enhance the gaming industry\u2019s ability to deliver economic benefits. The statement, however, left open the possibility for amending the new rules on deducting gambling losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to President Trump\u2019s expected signing and will work closely with Congress in the coming months to address the changes to wagering deduction losses and further modernize the tax code,\u201d an association spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Some industry analysts<\/a> predict that heavy gamblers may shift toward illegal games where their winnings and losses are not tracked.<\/p>\n

Gambling meccas, such as Las Vegas, are bracing for negative effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will have a big impact on gaming,\u201d Rep. Dana Titus, D-Nev., told Bloomberg. \u201cThey thought it was just a handful of professional poker players, but a lot of amateurs have come out of the woodwork to oppose it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tChris Field (Executive Editor), \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tEmma Stoltzfus (Video Editor), \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tand Lawrence Banton (Digital Producer)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcontributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professional gamblers say President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cBig, Beautiful Bill\u201d is a bad bet. Deep inside the fiscal measure…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[18007,327,23273,16759,210,23274,517,23271,10814,23275,80,5005,10816,618,30142,52,1439,67,132,68,23276],"class_list":{"0":"post-37052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-big-beautiful-bill","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-distro","11":"tag-gambling","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-imds","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-news-update","16":"tag-newsbreak","17":"tag-oovvuu","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-president-donald-trump","20":"tag-smartnews","21":"tag-taxes","22":"tag-text-first","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-u-s","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-ve"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114792903860185187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}