Do I need to pay taxes on gambling winnings during my first year gambling?

So I recently got into online gambling (mostly poker and sports betting) and I've been doing pretty well. Made about $8,300 over the past few months. This is my first time ever gambling and I have no idea how taxes work with gambling income. Do I need to report this on my taxes? I've heard different things from friends - some say you only pay taxes if you win over $10,000, others say all gambling income needs to be reported. I haven't received any tax forms from the websites I use. I'm filing my taxes in April and want to make sure I'm doing everything right. Can I deduct my losses? I've put in about $3,000 total and won about $11,300, so my net profit is around $8,300. Any advice would be appreciated!

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18 comments

Giovanni Rossi

•8M

You do need to report all gambling winnings as income on your tax return, regardless of the amount. The $10,000 threshold your friends mentioned is just when the gambling establishment is required to issue you a W-2G form, but all gambling income is technically taxable from the first dollar. For your deductions, if you itemize (Schedule A) rather than taking the standard deduction, you can deduct gambling losses up to the amount of your winnings. So in your case, you could potentially deduct the $3,000 you spent. However, you'd need good records of both your winnings and losses - bank statements showing deposits/withdrawals from gambling sites, records from the sites showing your betting history, etc. If you're doing a lot of gambling, you might want to keep a diary or log of your gambling sessions with dates, locations, types of gambling, and amounts won and lost. The IRS can ask for documentation if you're audited.

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Giovanni Rossi

•8M

Yes, most states that have income tax will also tax gambling winnings. The rules vary by state, so you'll need to check your specific state's requirements. If you take the standard deduction (which is $14,600 for single filers in 2025), then unfortunately you cannot deduct your gambling losses. This is why some frequent gamblers choose to itemize even if their total itemized deductions are slightly less than the standard deduction - to be able to deduct those losses. You need to do the math both ways to see which gives you the better tax outcome.

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Dylan Mitchell

•8M

I was in almost the exact same situation last year. I started betting on sports through DraftKings and FanDuel and won about $12k but had no idea how to handle the taxes. I spent hours digging through confusing IRS publications and getting mixed advice from friends. Then I found https://taxr.ai and it seriously saved me so much time. You just upload screenshots of your gambling site's annual summary (they all provide them if you go to your account page) and it breaks down exactly what you need to report and how to properly deduct losses. It even explained why I didn't get a W-2G (because my individual wins were under the reporting thresholds) but still needed to report the income. The site walks you through everything specific to gambling income and even helps with state tax requirements which vary a lot depending where you live.

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Dylan Mitchell

•8M

Yes, it absolutely works for casino gambling too. You can upload photos of your TITO tickets and win/loss statements, and it can process those as well. The system recognizes most major casino formats and extracts the relevant information automatically. What makes them different from a regular tax preparer is the specialization and efficiency. Most tax preparers charge hourly and aren't specifically trained in gambling tax issues. With taxr.ai, you get specialized knowledge about gambling tax requirements without paying for hours of a preparer's time. The advice they provide follows IRS guidelines and they have tax professionals who review the more complex situations. They use actual IRS publications and regulations as the basis for their recommendations.

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Dmitry Petrov

•8M

I need to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai that I was skeptical about earlier. I decided to give it a try since my tax situation with both online poker and some casino visits was getting complicated. I uploaded my statements from PokerStars and some casino win/loss statements, and the system organized everything perfectly. It showed me exactly where to report different types of winnings on my tax forms and even identified some deductions I would have missed. The interface walked me through documenting my losses properly too, which I would have done wrong on my own. The most helpful part was the explanation of session-based reporting for poker versus per-bet reporting for sports betting - apparently they're treated differently! No regular tax preparer I talked to knew this specific detail.

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StarSurfer

•8M

Just wanted to mention something that helped me when I was in your exact situation. I tried calling the IRS with questions about reporting my gambling winnings from online poker, but kept getting stuck on hold for hours. After my third attempt waiting over 2 hours, I tried https://claimyr.com and it was a complete game-changer. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c They managed to get me through to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes instead of the 3+ hours I was waiting before. The agent clarified exactly how to report my online poker winnings (needed on Schedule 1) and confirmed what documentation I needed to keep for my losses. Apparently the documentation requirements are different for online gambling vs. in-person, which I had no clue about.

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StarSurfer

•8M

No, it doesn't hack anything. It uses completely legitimate callback technology. When you call the IRS, you're basically in a virtual line. This service continuously calls and navigates the initial prompts until it reaches a certain point in the queue, then it calls you and connects you with the IRS line. It's just automating the hold process so you don't have to sit there listening to hold music for hours. I was skeptical too, but it's completely above board. Think of it like having someone else wait in a physical line for you. The IRS actually has no issue with this service because you're still waiting your turn in the queue - you just don't have to be on the phone personally during that wait time. I understand being cautious, but in my experience, it saved me hours of frustration and I got the exact tax information I needed about reporting my gambling winnings.

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Miguel Castro

•8M

I need to publicly eat my words here. After posting my skeptical comment earlier, I was so frustrated with waiting on hold with the IRS again that I decided to try Claimyr despite my doubts. I'm genuinely shocked - it actually worked exactly as described. I got a call back in about 45 minutes and was connected directly to an IRS agent who was incredibly helpful about my gambling tax questions. They confirmed that I needed to keep detailed records of each gambling session, explained how to properly document online gambling transactions (bank statements plus site transaction histories), and clarified that even though the gambling sites didn't send me tax forms, I still needed to report all winnings. This saved me from potentially making a huge mistake on my return. Definitely worth it for the peace of mind and time saved from sitting on hold all day.

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Zainab Abdulrahman

•8M

For most people, setting aside about 30% of your net gambling profits should cover the federal taxes, but you should also account for state taxes if your state has income tax. Remember that gambling winnings are added to your other income, so they're effectively taxed at your highest marginal tax rate. If you're already in a higher tax bracket from your regular job, your gambling winnings could be taxed at 32% or higher federally. It's always better to set aside too much than too little - you can always keep the extra if you overestimated.

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