So let's say you win the jackpot...

[Penguinfan]

I have said numerous times I am not a winning poker player, getting closer all the time, but not a winning player. I do play alot of horses and alot of off-shore sports wagering. My advice is to keep track of EVERYTHING, all deposits and all withdraws, everything. A few hundred here and there is not gonna be a problem, there is a 300-1 rule on the books about gambling, meaning any SINGLE wager not paying over 300-1 (and this is based on a $2 bet by the way) is not taxable, however if a person displays a pattern of income over a period of time making wagers with smaller payouts there is tax liability.

Pretty much what that means is if your income is derived mostly from sports betting or playing poker you need to file it on your taxes, if you deposit $500 in your poker account and withdraw $900 I would not worry too much about that. Now if you are withdrawing $900 every week off the same initial deposit and those $900's add up to 10 g's or so then yes you should claim it.

So lets say you hit the jackpot for $300 grand or so, your probably gonna want that cash and a withdraw like that is gonna attract attention, and screw the pople who tell you to request $999 every week till you get it all to avoid a red flag, it just doesn't work that way. You don't file and the IRS catches up with you, now your screwed, not only are they gonna want the tax you owe but fines and penaltys and late fees, and since they are already looking into your shit they may as well find out where all that cash came from, and when it came from out of the country you have alot of explaining to do, you better hope you can prove (in their eyes) that it was from gambling and not from drugs or terrorism or worse, let's say they take your word for it and believe it's from gambling, now you open up a whole new box of problems huh? MUCH easier is to pay the man his tax money, be pissed for a while and spend the remaining $250,000 any fucking way you want in peace.

Inevitably someone will come into this thread and say what a sissy I am for being afraid of the IRS like that and not having the balls to hide the money from them, one of us will end up in jail and the other on a beach somehwere, you figure out which is which.