Originally Posted by arcimede$ View Post
It is the definition of "winnings" that is important. If you take that literally that would mean every single hand where money was returned should be declared "winnings". Since that is ridiculous the IRS was inconsistent for years. Notice that it does not say "daily winnings" or specify any other time frame in the regulation. Essentially, this means the term is ambiguous and when the IRS itself uses W2Gs as their audit factor why would those "winnings" not be the best choice?

The key point is the difference between the 1040 value and Sch. A deduction should be the actual winnings. That is exactly what I've done and it has cost me money more than once.
I think you should look at what regnis wrote.