Top Gambling Industry Stories July 3: Big Beautiful Bill a Big Beautiful Tax Hike for Poker Players, Sports Bettors

These were your top stories to kick off the early part of Thursday July 3, 2025 from the world of gambling. Last 24 Hours Gambling911 Impressions: 78904 (63857 Per Day Average Impressions This Week, 50357 Per Day Average for Month)

Budget Reconciliation Has Ramifications for Gamblers

Betting markets for what was being billed as the "Big Beautiful Bill" drew some good readership to the Gambling911.com website, but it turns out gamblers may not be happy with this budget reconciliation bill in the end. 

Gamblers worried about a $1.1 billion tax hike buried in the Senate GOP’s tax bill that would slash their net winnings and potentially charge income tax when they break even or lose money.

In the Senate’s roughly 900-page version of President Donald Trump’s multitrillion-dollar tax bill, gamblers would only be able to deduct 90% of their losses when calculating their net income. Under current law, a bettor can deduct the entirety of their losses, up until the amount of their gambling winnings.

In a nutshell, under the new legislation, if a player were to report winnings of $100,000 and losses of $100,000, the player would still owe taxes on $10,000.

Poker players stand to lose out big should this bill pass into law (and it appears as if that's inevitable). 

Russ Fox, a principal of Clayton Financial and Tax in Las Vegas, offered an example scenario on his Taxable Talk blog. 

“Consider Larry, a professional gambler, with $500,000 of gambling winnings on the poker circuit, but $440,000 of losses and $50,000 of ordinary and necessary business expenses; he’ll have to pay tax on $59,000 of income rather than his $10,000 of net income,” he wrote. “There are two inescapable conclusions if the Senate version becomes law.  First, keeping a gambling log will be essential: If Joe had $100,000 of wins and $100,000 losses in the same session he would have $0 of gambling winnings.  Second, this would be another big negative towards gambling and would definitely hurt tourism in areas like Nevada.”

Here's the actual language in the bill about to pass the House that has so many professional and recreational gamblers upset because they can no longer completely offset losses, leading to some unintended (or not) consequences. pic.twitter.com/MWpTHHeCbo

— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) July 3, 2025

Derek Kwan sounded the death knell for live poker via his Twitter feed. 

"The proposed gambling tax update will quite literally kill poker live and online, and we only have a few days to do something about it (Friday this week is deadline)."

One of the most successful poker pros Phil Gammond writes: 

"Senate Amendment to the Big Beautiful Bill = You get taxed on more than you earned from gambling, even if you netted $0 (or less!)."

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