Final big, beautiful bill includes ugly provision for gamblers
The final version of the big, beautiful bill that will be signed into law by President Trump on Friday contains the tax provision that limits deductions for losses to 90 percent. It has caused widespread consternation among those who make their living by gambling. And by those who make their living by getting people to gamble.
Representative Dina Titus (D-Nevada), whose district includes Las Vegas, believes that the new law will nudge people away from legal gambling to illegal operations.
'It pushes people into the black market if they don't do regulated gaming because they have a tax disadvantage,' Titus said on News Nation. 'The black market doesn't pay taxes, isn't regulated, doesn't help with problem gaming, so it's bad for the industry, as well as for the player.'
Titus may be introducing legislation to change the law back to the way it was.
While the gambling industry would seem to benefit from scaring away those who consistently beat the house, not every professional gambler takes away more money than they lose. By wiping out all or most of them, the gambling industry loses the opportunity to take the money of the professional gamblers who lose more than they win.
So, yes, it will push gamblers to a system of gambling that doesn't report wins and losses to the IRS.
That said, anyone who has read all or (like me) most of Losing Big knows that the legal gambling industry in America isn't really doing enough to prevent problem gambling before problems arise. By potentially wiping out professional gambling, the purveyors of odds and not-breaking0evens will have even less incentive to come up with ways to keep people from pumping more money into the business than they should.
This is, frankly, one of the specific consequences of a bill that overwhelms the system to the point where the specific problems can't be identified until it's too late. And it's a primary facet of the current administration: There's always something else that's happening to prevent a proper counter to the things that have already happened.
Basically, they've come up with a way to game the political system. And it could be taking a chunk out of the American gaming industry.
For those gamblers who didn't vote for the current administration, we're sorry. For those gamblers who did, what's that saying about elections and consequences?
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