Originally Posted by Mission146 View Post
you'd often be better off just to take the standardized deduction which will result in paying some amount of tax on the W2-G win. Does that mean the IRS is kind of screwing over somewhat poor people on that one? Well, yeah.
Somewhat poor people?? It's estimated that 90% of Americans take the standard deduction and, my bet is for the vast majority of those, it creates the lowest tax liability and is the correct choice. So again, all this talk about logs is moot. For most people you're paying tax on the W2G period!

Originally Posted by Mission146 View Post
...it would be impossible to prove them (gambling logs) wrong. As anyone could figure out, if gambling losses were strictly deductible, then a great number of people would likely figure that out and deduct from their regular incomes losses that don't actually exist to get out of paying most of their income tax altogether.
And there's the rub...

I think we ultimately get to the point that it's nearly impossible to fairly tax winning gamblers. And then the vast majority of gamblers, who are overall losers, are going to pay increased taxes on invalid income. It's a F****d situation.