Deducting lottery losses

Can you deduct say $5,000 of lottery losses even if you have never had a winner large enough to require reporting ?

I've never done it. But to answer your question from what I've read, yes.

Your losses must out weigh the winnings, did u save your losing tickets?

Yeah I have lots of losing tickets lying around. Im hoping to write these off against income ??

Yeah, I don't see why not. Again, I've never done it and I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I don't see why not?

losing Lotto , losing powerball , losing fantasy 5 tickets also count. not just scratch.

hmm if you can no winners to be taxed...what are you deducting it from?? your income from your job???

I'm sure a lawyer or accountant will be along any minute now, and you probably already know this:

You can't deduct any more than your winnings, so if you are at a net loss, there is nothing to report. But in the case that you did have any wins over $600 then the lottery would report them for you, so you would then have to prove that it is not net profit/income.

From IRS:

You may deduct gambling losses only if you itemize deductions. However, the amount of losses you deduct may not be more than the amount of gambling income reported on your return.?

Yeah I was hoping to do this. But dont think its possible.

I figure since the money goes towards education in Florida then its the same as me having made a $5K+ donation towards that, which is deductable.

LOL thats what I tell myself everytime I buy a lotto ticket =-) Makes me feel like I did a good dead for the day

Anyways, James I usually do my taxes on TurboTax. There is a section for gambling winning where I enter in a W2G form. On that form is where I can put any winnings $1,000 plus. There is also a line on there which says "losses" to deduct the amount up to the winning amount ...

If you dont have a W2G form, I'm not sure how you can write off losses if there is no winning amount to tax you on.

Im sure there is some way, but im not 100%. thats all the info I know

Yes you can. I had $6,300 in winningsI had to claim on my taxes and I deducted $6,300.

Congrats ~ .. i hope i can get a win to deduct. my lotto purchases or  something. i just recently started to save my tickets~

Win$500 - but you got W2G forms since you had to file claims right? Or are you referring to wins that were less than $1,000 (not claimed at lottery office)  which added up to $6,300?

All my W2G forms added up to $6,300. One of the wins was for $800 because I played 1100 box. Remember anything over $599 you have to go to the district office. They don't withhold anything for prizes less than $5000 but you still get the W2G form.

Right, but I think James was asking if he could write of losses that he didn't have to go to the district office to claim. I dont think james got any W2G forms and he was wondering if he could still write off the losses.

I thought you were saying you wrote off all of your losses against wins, less than $599 which added up to $6,300. If that was the case I was going to ask how you did it =)

You can only write off gambling losses if you are claiming a win. You also can't exceed the total amount of the win you are claiming. I am sure over the past year I probably played more than the $6,300 I claimed. That is why we all need to hit the cash 3 str8 for $50 so we can get our money from the store a little at a time without paying taxes.