How Can Win/Loss Statements Be So Different from My Own Records?

I'm aware I might be a bit belated in this question, but when I received my win/statements from three casinos this year, it seemed like all three were for a different gambler. I couldn't match up almost anything on them to my own records. How can that be?

To celebrate (ahem) Tax Day, we're running this question we received last week. As the question states, it's not in time for 2023 taxes, but on the bright side, we're very early for 2024's.

For the answer, we're happy to reprint the reason that casino win/loss statement are well-known to be less than complete from Tax Help for Gamblers 4th Edition (updated in early 2019), by Jean Scott and her co-authors.

"Win/loss statements from casinos at the end of the year are valuable as supporting evidence of play, but many tax-court decisions have upheld the IRS position that they don’t substitute for a gambling log.

"For one thing, in the case of machine play, they cover only the time you play with your players club card inserted. Many people don’t ever use a card or use it sporadically.

"In the case of table play, you need to give your name to the pit boss and ask to be rated (something many players don’t do) to be sure that the casino keeps any records of your wins and losses; in addition, these are only human estimates (and will remain so until table games are computerized, which has been done in a few places and will become more common within a few years).

"Furthermore, casino win/loss statements vary greatly in accuracy and completeness, because there’s no standard form for the casino to use. Some forms for machine players are quite detailed if the casino has a good computer-tracking system, giving the exact time and win/loss figure for each day of the year you played a machine with your players card at their casino. Others merely give a total yearly win/loss figure and sometimes this is only an estimate based on theoretical machine hold, rather than your actual wins or losses. Still others may give you your lifetime total, rather than just one for the past year.

"Many statements are notoriously inaccurate and incomplete, often not counting hand-pays and/or W-2G jackpots, but not making that fact known. A few we [Jean and Brad] get match our own records fairly closely; most seem to have little relationship to our own extremely detailed records."

End quote.

So it is, as usual, a matter of GIGO: garbage in garbage out. When questionable data is fed into a computer, the information that emerges will also be questionable. And that's not good enough for the IRS.

No part of this answer may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.

Have a question that hasn't been answered? Email us with your suggestion.

Missed a Question of the Day?

Have a Question?

Tomorrow's Question

Has Clark County ever considered legalizing prostitution?

Comments

thebeachbum Apr-15-2024

Totally Agree

My casino win/loss statements are way off from my gambling log.

O2bnVegas Apr-15-2024

Hard to believe

...that the IRS/court decision would 'believe' a gambler's "detailed records."  What am I missing?  Couldn't I create my own (false) log in my favor if I wanted to?

Anyway, I was audited once, for the gambling win/loss portion of my return only.  Scared me to death.

The guidance material they sent with this "letter audit" listed items that could support my reply, including win/loss statements, losing bingo/horserace/lottery tickets, and of course the personally kept records.  W/L was all I had, no personal log.  I sent the win/loss statements, they replied that my "evidence" was sufficient and no changes to my return.  I can't recall the details of my return except the amounts were minimal.  And this was probably 25 or more years ago, if that made any difference.

A friend, a big horserace player, offered me a bundle of his losing tickets to include with my "evidence", many thousands.  No way would I do that, but somebody could.

Candy

Question of the Day - 15 April 2024

Comments