Ok, gang......how can I use my win/loss on my income tax to my advantage? can I? or am I dreaming?

Thanks!

Suzanne

Hi Suzanne:

I am not a US citizen, however, you use your losses to offset your wins. You are supposed to keep a journal. If you do not have this, you should be able to get a statement of losses from the casino, assuming you have a players card. However, many say this is not normally sufficient.

/\/\/\/\ the Shamus /\/\/\/\

Correct. US citizen or not! lol Say you win a 10k jackpot in 2009 but you spent 14K in 2009, then you don't owe any taxes on your win. As long as you lose more than your win you are okay. This is what our CPA told us. Soooo find all the atm receipts you can!! lol

__________________
Deb's YouTube gambling channel:

www.youtube.com/bonusqueenDeb

Yeah my mom is an accountant and I tried to someone swindle my losses into my income tax return. Since I had no W2G, no beans for me! She keeps telling me that's what she wants to see when I file my taxes, I haven't pulled through for her yet. Hopefully 2010 will change that!

Quick question - I usually use H&R block or do my taxes myself.
I got a W2-G this year, along with my Win/Loss statement.

I would think any tax professional would know exactly what to do.
Or are there certain types that deal with gambler?

(PS - I'll make this topic a sticky during the filing period for Q&As)

__________________

I won roughly $11,000 on a progressive machine at Bally's Wild West casino in AC a few years ago. Along with my win/loss statement, I collected all the losing lottery tickets I could in order to offset my win. So, my net effect on my taxes was zero. A little hint. Make sure you hold onto all the proof of your wins/losses for a mimimun of 7 years. The IRS can audit you up to 7 years back.

I collect and hold onto all my losing lottery tickets each year. With hopes of having a big win!


Carol

I've hit a couple of taxable jackpots, one for $1300, and one for $3600. I got a win loss statement from the casino to show that I had lost more then that for the year and the tax man let me use this to not pay taxes on it.

All of this makes me glad I'm Canadian - I suck at accounting!!

Wendy

The funny thing is that they accept ATM receipts, but not the casino win/loss statement? Well, you can withdraw money from ATM, and use it wherever you want. But the money on win/loss statement is the one that's actually spent at that casino, gambling. If IRS doesn't accept the win/loss statement, then why do they accept the W2G form casino files? They're all issued by the same establishment.

And, should everyone be using ATM to gamble? What if I just used money that I withdrew from a bank branch, say 10 days ago?

Rule is rule, but I just think it's very illogical. There cannot be any journal, or receipt that can be more reliable than a casino win/loss statement. Sometimes makes you feel happy that you didn't hit a jackpot.

Yeah. They don't want to accept a win/loss statement, but they DO want a self-written journal of the machines you played that someone could pretty easily fabricate if they wanted to. I doubt the IRS is going to go around to casinos and validate the journal ("hey, it says here you played machine #231546 and lost $50 on 1/15/2009, but the casino's records show that machine #231546 was not installed until 3/1/2009" ), right?