I don't believe this is true, barring some crazy example where the person wins $5 or something and owes more than that in taxes. Please elaborate, and feel free to start a new thread if you like, since I doubt this was discussed in Reel Deal's paper the other day.
Don't get me wrong - I know how terrible our tax laws are on this subject, but I didn't think this was possible.
In somewhat related news - does anyone else find it odd how the IRS will allow you to declare yourself a professional poker player and write off expenses related to poker playing (travel, etc), clearly implying that they understand it is a legitimate game of skill (you can't be a professional lottery player, for example), yet poker gets lumped in with all the game of chance games in this recent legislation... while the lottery is specifically carved out???