How Trump's big budget bill could affect horseplayers
As awareness grows about the implications for gamblers in the budget bill signed into law Friday by President Trump, questions are arising as well.
A provision in the bill that received little notice at first would limit the loss deductions for gamblers to 90%, rather than 100% currently. For example, someone with $100,000 in gambling winnings for a year and losses of $100,000 would have to pay taxes on $10,000 rather than zero under the current tax code.
Fairplaygov, an X account that says it researches U.S. sports betting and fantasy sports policy, posted a July 1 revenue estimate from the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation showing that the change was projected to generate $1.1 billion in tax revenue over eight years.
U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat who represents the Las Vegas area, was among the first to bring the issue to light.
In a state prepared before the bill passed, Titus said, "This anti-gambling provision in the BS Republican budget screws over folks who live and visit my district, the casino capital of the world, Las Vegas. This provision reduces the amount people can deduct from their gambling losses from 100% to 90%. This is just another attack on gaming and tourism and on districts like mine that rely on these industries. This also punishes people who are trying to do the right thing by reporting gambling on their taxes, pushing them towards offshore outlets and the predictions market, which unlike legitimate gambling sources, do not invest in bricks and mortar, pay state taxes, hire union labor, or contribute to problem gaming efforts.
"If given the chance, I will introduce an amendment to extend the current law and restore the loss deduction to 100%. If Republicans are unwilling to accept this amendment, I will pursue stand-alone legislation to fix this bad policy."
Michael Beychok, a political consultant who works “mostly on the Democratic side” and who won the 2012 National Horseplayers Championship, doesn’t have much confidence in her chances of reversing the provision.
“Titus is a Democrat. She's not going to get an amendment passed. Period,” Beychok told Horse Racing Nation on Friday. “So unless she can find some bipartisan, somebody on the other side, to help with it, I'm not sure there's going to be much of an appetite in Congress to fix anything that they just did.”
Beychok, who is based in Louisiana, believes the root of the issue is that bettors, especially in horse racing, have little advocacy.
“Sports gambling is starting to understand that there's really no voice or no representation or consideration of the consumers, which are the bettors,” he told HRN. “In horse racing, it's almost like just a part of the game where, you know, bettors, horse players, don't really have a big voice in anything. And we always kind of take the bad, and there's no good for us and we just kind of soldier on.”
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association issued a statement praising the bill for making 100% bonus depreciation permanent, calling it “an important incentive for Thoroughbred breeders and owners.”
The NTRA also acknowledged the change in the gambling tax provision, saying, “there is still work to be done to offset some losses by horseplayers in their ability to deduct tax losses. The NTRA is committed to working on that fix moving forward.”
The change would not go into effect until next year, and NTRA CEO Tom Rooney, a former Republican congressman from Florida, told Daily Racing Form, “The only thing we may be able to do is work with our colleagues on the Hill on a way to move forward that doesn’t hurt us.”
The American Gaming Association also lauded the bill, saying on X that it “significantly enhances our industry’s ability to sustain quality jobs and deliver economic benefits.” But it added that it will “work closely with Congress in the coming months to address the changes to wagering deduction losses and further modernize the tax code.”