Here's some posts I made on 2+2 about these matters, which some of you might enjoy.....

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I've been posting about this on X, and most people are angry at me because I'm not riding the outrage and doom-and-gloom train.

It's much easier to join the screaming crowd and post, "OMG!! EXISENTIAL THREAT TO PRO POKER AND SPORTSBETTING!! UNFAIR!!! NO GOOD!! THIS MUST BE REPEALED!! CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN!! COME ON EVERYONE LET'S FIGHT!!!"

Posts like that mean nothing, and accomplish nothing.

Here's some realities, whether you like them or not. I can speak these realities from 25+ years involvement in the poker / sportsbetting / casino advantage play communities. As a disclaimer, note that I am NOT advocating you cheat on your taxes, but rather am discussing what I've observed in the gambling communities for the past 25 or so years. As a second disclaimer, I am not a tax professional and this is not tax advice. It's just the observations of an idiot on a forum.


1) Dina Titus' FAIR Act to negate this change is a nice bill, but it's not going anywhere. Titus has zero influence. Everything she tries fails. You don't get an A for effort in Congress. The best bill in the world is useless if it doesn't pass. She is not going to rescue you. This new tax law is going to take effect on 1/1/26 whether you like it or not.

2) This will not end professional gambling as we know it. In fact, the gambling/poker/sportsbetting landscape will look very similar a year from today, compared to right now. Go ahead and screenshot this post, and show it to me on 12/4/26 if you want to rub it in my face that I'm wrong, but I'm reasonably sure I'll be right.

3) This only affects a small percentage of players. If you don't itemize, you're not affected. If your total net losing SESSIONS (note the word sessions) are 11% or more greater than your total net winning sessions, this will not affect you.

4) Playing offshore online poker is not going to save you. This is because you are expected to pay income tax on ALL income, not just US-derived income. Sure, some people don't declare offshore income, but that's cheating on your taxes. And if you're going to cheat on your taxes like that, then you'd also likely be willing to simply pad 11% fake losses onto your actual number, which would negate this law. It is bizarre how people clutch pearls and say "OMG I WOULD NEVER DECLARE FAKE LOSSES", yet claim they'll play offshore to dodge this law. It's like saying you wouldn't ever shoplift because you're a good person, so instead you're going to run email phishing scams.

5) Casino advantage players will definitely not be affected. There is no reliable tracking of their wins and losses, as they typically play on multiple players cards (many not in their own names), as well as often with no card at all. Their wins/losses on their taxes are completely self-reported and unverifiable beyond a very rough number. I can assure you that very few casino APs report their actual winnings to the IRS. Most report a number they feel they can get away with defending if audited. So these people will just tack on another 11% of losses, and the new law will be negated. There will be no proof they did this, in most cases.

6) Live cash poker players are similar. You can pretend we live in a perfect world where live cash poker players accurately report their winnings to the IRS, but most don't. Again, they will simply tack on another 11% of "losses" and nobody will be the wiser.

7) Sessions matter, and most people don't understand them. The 90% loss deduction limit only matters for losing sessions against winning sessions, NOT within the same session. If you're in the same session, you can deduct 100% of losses. For example, if you win $100k in a tournament, and then walk over to the blackjack table and donk it all off, you have broken even. You wouldn't have any tax liability for this day, because it's all the same session. The IRS has never defined a "session" with specifics, so players can define their own sessions by whatever is most advantageous for them, and as long as it's somewhat reasonable (you can't say the year is one long session), then it will typically pass an audit. This will be a huge legal tool to combat this new law.

8) The law on the books is one thing, and enforcement is another. I have serious doubts that the IRS is going to come after breakeven players who declare zero gambling income, even if the law states they owe taxes for nonexistent wins. Remember, this is all self-reported, and very few gamblers have historically been audited. In fact, there's gamblers I've known over the years whom I was sure would get audited (like one guy who made millions in cash games and didn't file a return for 5 years straight), but somehow they never did. So the enforcement might be very light, if at all.

9) People will probably start creating phony losses to negate this, if necessary. For example, the tournament-only player might start claiming he's also playing live cash and losing a bunch of money, and include those fake "losing sessions" in his losses calculation, until it brings down his total liability 11% (and negates the new law). This will be tough for the IRS to prove. Typically the way they prove tax evasion is showing that you have far more wealth/assets/deposits/cash than your returns claim you should have. For example, if I claim to have made no more than $100k per year for the past 20 years, and I buy a $10m house in cash today, that would be very suspicious to the IRS. They might haul me in and ask how I had $10m cash to buy this house, if my returns show I haven't made anywhere near $10m lifetime. But the tournament player claiming additional cash losses that offset his overall tournament winnings probably wouldn't be questioned. Again, I am not advocating doing things like this, and I always file my own taxes legally. I'm just saying it's going to happen, and therefore these people will keep playing despite all of their claims that it makes their career unviable.

10) Take #9 and apply it to pretty much any other form of gambling (sportsbetting, for example), and you'll see that a lot of people are going to keep on with their pro gambling careers, and just adjust what they claim to the IRS. You're not going to have a mass quitting of pros who go work regular jobs, nor are you going to have many people actually sending money to the IRS to pay taxes on a breakeven or slightly losing year.


When I point stuff out like the above, I get a lot of pearl-clutching and stupid responses:

"OMG how can you advocate tax cheating? I thought you're the anti-fraud guy!" ---- I'm not advocating this, but I know my fellow gamblers, and I'm telling you what many are going to do.

"Why are you defending this new law? Stop it! Join our fight instead of telling us it's not a big deal!" ---- I'm not defending the new law. It sucks, and I hate it. But this is not going to have the gigantic impact on the game that people think it will.

"Sessions don't matter! You can only deduct 90% of losses from winnings! Period!" --- Nope, you're wrong.

"There's a cap of 90% deduction from winnings. You don't know what you're talking about!" --- Nope, there is no cap in the new law. The only change involves taking your total losing sessions and multiplying that number by 0.9 before subtracting it from winnings, for tax calculations.

"The IRS is going to see everything from now on and send me a big tax bill!" --- Nope, this is self-reported. You will only have to defend your numbers when you get audited, so keep that in mind no matter what you choose to do.