keep losing tickets from the year to write off the winnings

do you keep losing tickets from the year to write off winnings so you won't have to pay taxes on the winnings?

At least in Wisconsin it wouldn't help you on your state taxes.  They revoked the law that allowed you to do that.  You can not deduct any losing tickets on your income tax form.  But they expect you to declare your winnings (anything you win under $599 on one ticket is paid by the retailer, and there is no paperwork so the state doesn't know who won the money) ...and obviously, any prize won of $600 or more, that must go through the Lottery Office, so they do know about that, and you better declare it on your income tax form.

Our state doesn't believe you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.

Naturally, everyone declares all their lotto winnings here each year. <cough cough>

I always thought it was messed up that one has to claim any winnings over a certain amount but can't claim losses.  Its not fair.  In the casino, you have to claim slot machine jackopts over $1,199 but most people lose waaaayyyyy more than that.  They won't even pay you unless you fill out the appropriate tax forms.

On the tables is a little bit more lenient.  You have to claim any winnings over $10,000.  That means if you go to the cash out window with $10,000.25 dollars (yes, minibaccarrat and big bacc tables have quaters and its not unusual to cash out odd amounts like that), you have to pay taxes on it.  But if you just go with the straight $10,000 you get the whole $10k in cash. 

What I sometimes hint to people is to hand anything over 10k to their friend and tell them to go in a seperate line.  Most of the time, the people that cash out that much have lost wayyyyy more than 10k.  I had a guy lose $75k in like 3 hours and when he went to cash out, they treated the rest of his money like it was winnings and taxed it.

1. What winnings?

2. Too much work.  If I hit big, I'll pay the extra $150 in taxes that I could've written off for the year.

It's not as easy as most people think.  If you are audited, you'll have to prove you actually bought the tickets yourself and keep a log of your purchasing activities, the same way a salesperson has to log mileage and expenses.  The IRS knows that anyone can grab a bunch of scratchers from a trash can ouside of a supermarket or collect losing tickets from friends.

I do keep my tickets anyway, although I've never had the opportunity to use them for that purpose.

(I actually read this months ago on LP.)

Badger

It will still help for Federal.

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 Justxploring

Exactly right! 

RJOh (I think it was him) posted about this before, the tickets alone are not enough, you also need a journal of daily play.

That's to prevent someone from making a late year hit and then hanging out at a race track, Keno parlor, sports book, or lotto outlet and collecting losing tickets off the floor. (There's people that actually tried this).

The law is you can write off your winings up to your losses, i.e., you can't win $10,000 and then say you lost $40,000 (even if you did). (Or some cal it your losses up to your winnings). 

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 Jag331

1. What winnings?

What if you hit something that called for far, far more than $150 in taxes though? You never know.  

That's my point.  I spend $250-$500 a year on lottery tickets, so the tax deduction would work out at most to around $150-$200.  If I'm paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes on a big win, I'm not going to sweat an extra $150 that would require me to keep a log book of my purchases to claim.

First of all everyone gets a standard deduction of $4500 which includes all their lost including those from gambling, interest on debt, work expenses and etc. unless they can prove more and they can only deduct gambling lost up to what they won regardless of the amount spent getting that win if they're not a professional gambler. 

A few years back I spent $3000 on lottery tickets and won a $1500 prize.  I could deduct up to $1500, but it and all my other deductions didn't exceed the standard deduction so I ended  up paying taxes on the extra $1500 as regular income and getting no allowance for the $1500 I actually lost playing the lottery.

I still keep my losing tickets and a record of when I played just in case I ever win and spend enough to deduct more than the standard deduction.  This could be helpful  if I ever get a home mortgage on which I pay interest of more than $4500 a year.

CT, RJ, JX, you are all correct, up to what you win, you have to have the W2-G to claim winnings, and if you get audited you need receipts, winnings are income.  The bets placed, are a deduction, the cost of gambling.  I just won a 50/50 P4 straight I had to fill the form out show Drivers and SS#, it takes just a few days but I will receive a W2-G for this years income tax. Anyway that reminds me I got get that tax return done for last year ASAP. LOL jarasan

This flag don't fly without taxes.

i would like to do this but wonder if it would be allowed in tennessee?

The federal tax laws are the same in all the United States and you are talking about the Tennessee that's is the U.S, are you not?

No but I do keep my large jackpot losing tickets for bookmarks.

You can only claim as a loss the maximum amount that you won.

If you bought $1,000 in tickets and won only $10.00, you can only claim a loss of $10.00.

If you bought $1,000 in tickets and won $600, you can claim $400 in losses, but you will also file the $600 winnings as income.

If you bought $1,200 in tickets and won $1,000, you can claim $200 in losses, but you will also claim the $1,000 as income. 

That's what my CPA says, and filed for me about a month ago. 

HR BLOCK, TAX CUT, etc. online filing software asks if you have any W2g's and then it asks for gambling losses all automatically, again you gotta have receipts (losing tix) though I would recommend always keeping them. LOL jarasan

 Fear this.

For example 2 you've got $599 in net gains on your win (assuming it was a $1 ticket and a single win) and since you spent more than that on other tickets you can deduct $599 in gambling losses. If your CPA calls it 600 and 600 that's fine, but the two are the same amount and cancel out. If you were really told you could only claim $400 in losses you need a new CPA.