New tax law not freindly to gamblers

I recently spoke to someone who is a local and he and his wife play a lot of video poker. There combined W-2gs exceed $40,000 for last year. This is my novice take on the new tax law, if anyone thinks differntly please say so.

They are married with two dependents. I will guess their combined income is $100,000. Gamling losses can be deducted to the extent of winnings but only if tou itemize. Their non gambling areapproximately $8,000.

In 2018 under the old law in oreder to itemize they need to pay tax on $5,000 of gambling winnings to get to the $13,000 ( the prior standard deduction figure for 2018 under the old law)  in order to itemize to deduct the remainder og gambling winnings. Old law $100,000 income less $13,000 standard dedution less 4 personal exemptions $16,400 ($4,100 X 4) yields net taxable income of $70,600. Pay tax on $5,000 gambling winnings.

Under the new law for 2018 $100,000 income standard deduction rises to $24,000 for joint return. Pay Tax on $16,000 of gambling winnings. Lose all personal expemtions. Taxable income $76,000. The additional $5,400 in taxable income is added to additional $11,000 ($16,000-$5,000) in gambling winnings that you have to pax on in order to itemize.

Net result have an additional $16,400 in taxable income under the new law, the net tax is reduced by any redution in the new rates.

The take on this is try to have fewer W-2g's in 2018.

I assume they are netting their sessions to arrive at their profit for the year.  My interpretation would be to claim all of their gambling winnings which would be significantly more than just their w2g forms and then they would have way more than $24k of losses so they can itemize and still be treated the same as 2017 and prior.  They should already be including all of their gambling winnings in their net income not just the w2g winnings.  In your example if they have 40k of w2g winnings they should have a lot more gambling income to report but also a lot more gambling losses to report to get them to the point of itemizing. 

If they had net gambling income of $5,000 for the year, reporting would be ...

Misc Income (gambling) 80,000.00 (40,000.00 w2g plus additional 40,000.00 not w2g but still winnings)

Itemized gambling loss of 75,000.00 to get you to the net of $5,000 of gambling income to report)

In the above example if their net for the year was a loss, the itemized gambling loss would be capped at 80,000.00 for no tax implication at all.

The issue is that you will pay tax any any gambling winnings to the extent you are short of being able to itemize without gambling losses.

In the above example $100,000 wages no gambling winnings or losses, $24,000 standard deduction equals $76,000 taxable income.

Assume net loss on gambling, $80,000 in wins. Income $100,000 in wages $80,000 in gambling wins. $180,000 total income. Itemized deductions $8,000 not including gambling losses add $80.000 gambling losses. total itemized deductions $88,000. Taxable income $92,000. You pay an additional tax on $16,000, your shortfall on itemized deductions of the standard deuction minus your non gambling itemized deductons.

Throw in the the loss of personal exemptions and see this is a bad deal.