Imagine grinding all year. Tournament entries, cash game swings, chasing promos that feel like a coin flip in a hurricane. You end up even. No profit, no loss. Just bruised pride and a thousand Uber Eats receipts. Then April hits, and the IRS says you owe tax on money you never actually made.
Welcome to the FAIR Bet Act. Or rather, the mess that made it necessary.
Here’s what happened. In 2025, Congress passed a bill called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Cute name, disastrous fine print. Hidden inside was a tax code tweak that capped gambling loss deductions at 90 percent. Before, you could deduct your full losses against your wins. Now, you can only claim nine out of ten dollars lost. The rest? The government pretends you kept it and taxes you like a winner.
So you wager 100 grand. You win 100 grand. You walk away even. But the IRS treats it like you profited ten thousand dollars, because you can only write off 90 percent of the losses. It’s like losing a pot, then tipping the guy who slowrolled you.
The genius behind this was Senator Mike Crapo. Yes, that’s a real name. He slipped it in without telling anyone. No debate, no press release. Just quietly reaching into the pockets of gamblers like it was a casino ATM on payday.
Now Rep. Dina Titus from Nevada is trying to fix it. She introduced the FAIR Bet Act, which simply restores the full deduction. Nothing fancy. Just undoing the part where they tax fictional income like it’s real. She’s backed by Vegas operators, gaming lawyers, and literally anyone who’s looked at a gambling tax form without screaming.
The pitch is basic. If you didn’t win, you shouldn’t pay. If you played all year and broke even, the IRS shouldn’t pretend you’re Phil Ivey in a hot streak. Seems obvious. But not to Congress.
Titus tried to attach the fix to a defense spending bill. Blocked. She asked the Ways and Means Committee to take it up. Silence. It’s sitting in legislative purgatory while 2026 creeps closer, and gamblers get ready to pay taxes on air.
Let’s be clear. This won’t just hurt pros. It hits weekend bettors, DFS grinders, guys sweating same-game parlays with a Coors Light in hand. It punishes everyone who actually plays by the rules and reports their income. And it encourages people to stop doing that.
You want to drive gamblers offshore? Start taxing imaginary winnings. See how fast people delete their DraftKings app and open up Telegram.
The FAIR Bet Act is not some gambling loophole. It’s a patch for a tax system that decided breaking even is no longer good enough. If Congress doesn’t fix it, don’t be surprised when players start rooting for losses—because at least then the math makes sense.
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