Hi, who do you manage paying taxis when you are a professional gambler?
The Taximan?
There are people who lives from the casino and tournaments.
They are persecuted by the state where I live.
Pro gamblers certainly earn less than someone who won the jackpot at the lottery, and this last does not owe one cent to the Tax Office.
There are several types of pro gamblers.
Poker and other pros sometimes win huge prizes that you cannot hide from Tax Office.
Card counters earn 1.5%, we know.
Some VB and biased wheels players earn more than you imagine.
If you know lot of pro gamblers as you are saying, then just ask them about Taxes.
I only know a relative of mine who plays poker and her friends but there is no legislation about in my country.
I don’t know if any other pro-gambler has had similar problems.
I know in Canada, gambling winnings are not subject to tax unless it can be proven that you have made the money using skill and not luck (which is hard to do). For example, if you are a poker player and you win a pile of money in a year you are not subject to taxes on your winnings as you could have been lucky. However if you are able to duplicate this feat next year then the argument can be made that you won based on skill that you have, making it your “Work” and no longer a game of chance. It’s a grey area no matter how you slice it.
Another interesting thing I read is that if you are a canadian gambler who is successful, but you also hold a job, you only have to pay tax on the higher amount of money that is earned. So if you have a 50K job, but you earned 45K in poker, your poker winnings are safe. If you make 65K playing cards and 50K in your job, then poker is considered your primary source of income and you won’t have to pay taxes on your 50K from your job. You’d have to talk to an accountant to get all the details about it. Problem with that is if you walk into any accountant’s office and tell him you are a pro gambler looking for tax benefits, they will likely not know how to help because you are the first pro gambler they have ever had to deal with.
Another possibility is opening up your own business. If you have your own business, you are subject to a whole bunch of tax breaks and can write off a buttload of things as a business expense.
It varies from country to country, and it is hard to find any good info on it. Thanks to poker, a lot more people are having to face these taxation issues so a lot more info is becoming available. Hope this helps a little.
Here in France, there is no taxes for pro gamblers. I learnt this through two documentaries presenting 2 pro harness racing players. They represent 1% of the total gamblers. The state does not care about it, each year, their earnings grow, there are more and more losers because people are getting poorer and thus try to win the jackpot, but in the end, they win the right to play again.
I usually give the driver a generous tip when Ive had a good win
and that is NEVER GAMBLE