Question about "professional" gamblers

[StackinGreen]

Do most who use this title file taxes as a full time gambler (as in enterprise or trade) and report on a 1040? I saw that now you can only deduct up to your gambling winnings after the 2017 tax act, and not business expenses beyond. If that were the case, I was wondering what level of winning and deduction guys took the liberty of making, and if that was even traceable for most players by not necessarily hitting a CTR on many of the yearly wagers. Did they claim 30-40k typically like to go shop or hot dog vendors might, etc because it's a "cash" business?

Or are most of these guys side players/casual gamblers (or they use locals where it's all on the down low).

If I did this after scaling back my normal gig in say, 10 years, I'd be interested to hear what most people do if they take a shot at gambling "full time" while managing their stock portfolios, etc but no longer are in their career work or W2 mode.

Thanks

[RangeFinder]

If you file as a professional gambler you must state it as your only income. If you have a job you cannot file deductions as a pro gambler.

Some really get tripped up on that.

[danshan11]

I file as a 1099 employee of an LLC as an adviser to the llc

[StackinGreen]

I file as a 1099 employee of an LLC as an adviser to the llc

Paid a salary from the LLC?

[danshan11]

not a salary a % contract of net from the LLC as an independent contractor

[eaglesfan371]

If you file as a professional gambler you must state it as your only income. If you have a job you cannot file deductions as a pro gambler.

Some really get tripped up on that.

Danshan basically described how to get around that.

If you have any interest or are making money from gambling, talk sooner that later to a CPA that has experience with professional gambling.

[jtoler]

what do u want to know, shoot me a pm dont wanna answer certain stuff in public

[StackinGreen]

jtoler, you're always good for a laugh

[Ian]

To file as a professional you fill out a schedule C 1040.

You are correct that professional gamblers are no longer allowed to show a net operating loss, but legitimate expenses can still be deducted. For example, if you make 100k, lose 50k, and have 15k in expenses, you'd report 35k in income (100 - 50 - 15 =35); but if you made 100k, lost 80k, and had 25k in expenses, your income would be zero, not -5k.

Frankly, unless you are making a living from a very high variance form of gambling like video poker, this shouldn't be a factor. A poker player or sports bettor showing a loss for a year should imo look for a different form of income.

[TheMoneyShot]

Do most who use this title file taxes as a full time gambler (as in enterprise or trade) and report on a 1040? I saw that now you can only deduct up to your gambling winnings after the 2017 tax act, and not business expenses beyond. If that were the case, I was wondering what level of winning and deduction guys took the liberty of making, and if that was even traceable for most players by not necessarily hitting a CTR on many of the yearly wagers. Did they claim 30-40k typically like to go shop or hot dog vendors might, etc because it's a "cash" business?

Or are most of these guys side players/casual gamblers (or they use locals where it's all on the down low).

If I did this after scaling back my normal gig in say, 10 years, I'd be interested to hear what most people do if they take a shot at gambling "full time" while managing their stock portfolios, etc but no longer are in their career work or W2 mode.

Thanks

You're better off googling C.P.A.'s. Pick a C.P.A. and call them.... most allow one question free of charge.

You could even copy and paste the same question.... and just email several C.P.A.'s. At least half should respond back with an answer.

[BigdaddyQH]

The trick is to make wagers that pay off less than minimum amount that the casino's must report your winnings on. 10 winning wagers at 1000 each would not be reported but one winning wager of 10,000 would be. Despite popular belief, casino's and sports books are NOT in the business of keeping track of how much money any particular person wins. To begin with, No Pro ever wagers himself. He has a small number of other people place his wagers for him. The books all know this, but now have an excuse to play dumb, and claim that they do not know who the people placing the wagers are. The truth of the matter is that I use several people to place my wagers. I know pro gamblers who use others, mostly ladies, to place their wagers. Since the books know who these people are, they will change a line no matter who makes the wager, or no matter how much the wager is for, as long as they know who is really behind the wager.

[danshan11]

The trick is to make wagers that pay off less than minimum amount that the casino's must report your winnings on. 10 winning wagers at 1000 each would not be reported but one winning wager of 10,000 would be. Despite popular belief, casino's and sports books are NOT in the business of keeping track of how much money any particular person wins. To begin with, No Pro ever wagers himself. He has a small number of other people place his wagers for him. The books all know this, but now have an excuse to play dumb, and claim that they do not know who the people placing the wagers are. The truth of the matter is that I use several people to place my wagers. I know pro gamblers who use others, mostly ladies, to place their wagers. Since the books know who these people are, they will change a line no matter who makes the wager, or no matter how much the wager is for, as long as they know who is really behind the wager.

LOL

[JacketFan81]

LOL

Exactly lol

[BigdaddyQH]

LOL

You obviously know NOTHING about serious wagering. You are a broke rank amateur. Have you ever been to Vegas before? I seriously doubt it. The problem with you people is that you are simply too chicken caca to admit that you are amateurs who think they know what they are doing, but in fact, are overall losers. Man up. I can guarantee you that I ave won more money wagering and gaming than any 20 people in here added up. None of you would come close. You guy settle for Big Macs because that is all you can afford, I TIP more than that.

[danshan11]

nothing about betting, correct. broke, correct. yes been to vegas but only played penny slots. am I an amateur, no doubt. I like big macs!

[JacketFan81]

You don't have $1000 bucks to your name, clown.

[StackinGreen]

The trick is to make wagers that pay off less than minimum amount that the casino's must report your winnings on. 10 winning wagers at 1000 each would not be reported but one winning wager of 10,000 would be. Despite popular belief, casino's and sports books are NOT in the business of keeping track of how much money any particular person wins. To begin with, No Pro ever wagers himself. He has a small number of other people place his wagers for him. The books all know this, but now have an excuse to play dumb, and claim that they do not know who the people placing the wagers are. The truth of the matter is that I use several people to place my wagers. I know pro gamblers who use others, mostly ladies, to place their wagers. Since the books know who these people are, they will change a line no matter who makes the wager, or no matter how much the wager is for, as long as they know who is really behind the wager.

Generally this is true, you go a little far with the placing thing at end, but to a certain degree of course that's true too.

Horse racing works like this with withholding as well, and of course there tellers could not care less, mostly because they are just workers and the parimutuel system means that adjustments are automatic, anyway.

[TennisAceE]

Better question is does anyone write off their gambling losses?

[SlickFazzer]

Great thread.

[billyloco]

Write off your looses??

NOBODY within my social circle

knows I sports bet OR that I go to

a craps house! IMO that question

should NOT even be on here!

[Outsider626]

I work as tax accountant and never had a professional gambler as a client. Had a few grannies who won a few thousand on horse races and that's about it. But yeah in general professional gamblers can report their income and expenses on schedule C.

[Lenny Zefflin]

To begin with, No Pro ever wagers himself. He has a small number of other people place his wagers for him. The books all know this, but now have an excuse to play dumb, and claim that they do not know who the people placing the wagers are. The truth of the matter is that I use several people to place my wagers. I know pro gamblers who use others, mostly ladies, to place their wagers.

This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Just to pick something at random...so a pro sends someone to make a bet for them and then magically people show up at the window sweating them about who just made the bet...but no fear, the book just plays dumb about the whole thing. Lol I mean who do they play dumb to?

[BigdaddyQH]

Obviously the vast majority of people in here have never made a wager of over $1000.00 and won it. It is a business people. I do not live in Vegas. I used to live about 2 /2 hours way, so driving up there for a night to make and ash in wagers was no big thing. Now, thanks to idiots like yourself who want to make millions but have no clue what they are doing, plus the fact I now live about 4 hours away from Vegas, it is not worth the trip. So I take the money I would have spent on gas, tips (substantial compared to you nickel and dimers in here) and just pay people to make these wagers for me. My friends do the same thing. We have a large amount of money deposited in Vegas, so it is not difficult for these "runners" to obtain the necessary money's to make the wagers that we want to make. These runners (as I said, mostly ladies) do a great job. A lot of stay at home mothers looking to make a buck legitimately. The funny thing is that these ladies probably know more about football than 90% of you clowns who love to brag about how much they know. Since they must carry rather large sums of money occasionally, most of them have been trained to kick ass. I could just see one of you big mouths making a move on one of them and getting your tail used as a floor mop.

The secret is simple. The more money you have, the easier it is to make money. Figure it out. You and I both wager on the same team. You wager $100.00. I wager $1000.00. We win. You win $100.00. I win $1000.00. Say we both make the same number of wagers on the same team and end up with the same number of wins and losses. As long as the winning percentage is 53 or more, I will make more money than you will. Yes, it could be lower than 53%, but in my case, that has happened once in over 40 years of gaming. I will never forget that season. It was 1998. When you win, you may learn that you are doing something right. When you lose, you should be learning EXACTLY what you did wrong. By the way, complaining about the refs IS NOT a legitimate excuse unless you are in fact, a loser, like a minimum of 85% of you in here are. This is not bad, considering that I have consumed my share of Crown Royal so far today.

[leetreaper]

Obviously the vast majority of people in here have never made a wager of over $1000.00 and won it. It is a business people. I do not live in Vegas. I used to live about 2 /2 hours way, so driving up there for a night to make and ash in wagers was no big thing. Now, thanks to idiots like yourself who want to make millions but have no clue what they are doing, plus the fact I now live about 4 hours away from Vegas, it is not worth the trip. So I take the money I would have spent on gas, tips (substantial compared to you nickel and dimers in here) and just pay people to make these wagers for me. My friends do the same thing. We have a large amount of money deposited in Vegas, so it is not difficult for these "runners" to obtain the necessary money's to make the wagers that we want to make. These runners (as I said, mostly ladies) do a great job. A lot of stay at home mothers looking to make a buck legitimately. The funny thing is that these ladies probably know more about football than 90% of you clowns who love to brag about how much they know. Since they must carry rather large sums of money occasionally, most of them have been trained to kick ass. I could just see one of you big mouths making a move on one of them and getting your tail used as a floor mop.

The secret is simple. The more money you have, the easier it is to make money. Figure it out. You and I both wager on the same team. You wager $100.00. I wager $1000.00. We win. You win $100.00. I win $1000.00. Say we both make the same number of wagers on the same team and end up with the same number of wins and losses. As long as the winning percentage is 53 or more, I will make more money than you will. Yes, it could be lower than 53%, but in my case, that has happened once in over 40 years of gaming. I will never forget that season. It was 1998. When you win, you may learn that you are doing something right. When you lose, you should be learning EXACTLY what you did wrong. By the way, complaining about the refs IS NOT a legitimate excuse unless you are in fact, a loser, like a minimum of 85% of you in here are. This is not bad, considering that I have consumed my share of Crown Royal so far today.

[Alfa1234]

Basic math. You play EVERY SINGLE NFL game in the season at -110 (normal). And wager 5k (not 1k, no 5k!) for each and every single game and you have a whopping 57% win rate. These are all completely impossible presumptions. You'd make 113 570$ that season. Without paying your "runners" anything at all. Not exactly Crown Royal winnings and that's with 5k/game on EVERY SINGLE game and a huge 57% win rate.

Why are you doing this? Be happy, enjoy life. No need for this at all.

[StackinGreen]

^ It is crazy when you do the math and think about life and what things cost vs. risk. And that's huge risk, as Alfa states. Good post.

Betting sparingly when you already have the money, with offshore guys or locals that take large bets (20k) is the way you do it. But they'll notice quickly that if you make large wagers and pick spots (and win) that you're probably not the type of guy they want to take bets from.

The other part of this is that if you have 20k here and there to make those bets, 100k is probably a good amount , but not that meaningful for you as a person/bettor/investor ... to be constantly chasing extra money at risk. So there's that too ...

[leetreaper]

Basic math. You play EVERY SINGLE NFL game in the season at -110 (normal). And wager 5k (not 1k, no 5k!) for each and every single game and you have a whopping 57% win rate. These are all completely impossible presumptions. You'd make 113 570$ that season. Without paying your "runners" anything at all. Not exactly Crown Royal winnings and that's with 5k/game on EVERY SINGLE game and a huge 57% win rate.

Why are you doing this? Be happy, enjoy life. No need for this at all.

Unrael

[Kaplan]

He tips more than a Big Mac.

Instant classic.

[StackinGreen]

He tips more than a Big Mac.

Instant classic.