When you win a big slot machine jackpot, the casino is required to withhold the 24% itself when you claim your prize; it also provides you with an IRS form, called a W2-G, to report your winnings. You can deduct the full amount that you wagered (even on separate occasions); you only pay tax on your gambling profit for the year. If you win $5000 playing poker but lose $6000 on slots, you don't pay any tax on your winnings.
- When Do You Have To Pay Taxes On A Slot Machine Win
- When Can You Pay Taxes On A Slot Machine Machines
When Do You Have To Pay Taxes On A Slot Machine Win
Posted in Guides July 25, 2020
It’s easy to get carried away once you hear the winning music and see the flashing bright lights upon hitting the jackpot on a slot machine. The usual thought process of a soon-to-be millionaire does not involve potential taxes and fees that the win carries. However, there are many factors to take into consideration when winning big on slot machines – the main one being taxed.
If you’re a regular slot machine player, you must have wondered about taxes imposed on your winnings. Luckily, we are here to explain in detail how taxes can impact your winnings. Please scroll down to learn all about it.
Taxes in the UK
United Kingdom residents can consider themselves lucky, as there are no tax payments for casino winnings. The same rule goes for all casino games, from poker to baccarat, including slot machines. Regardless of the sum they win, players won’t have to report winnings and pay taxes – no matter if it’s £50 or £500,000.
Since residents of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland do not succumb to any taxes regarding casino winnings, they can walk out with their casino winnings with a spring in their step.
When Can You Pay Taxes On A Slot Machine Machines
The same rule applies to both land-based and online casinos in the United Kingdom.
However, casino operators and gambling institutions in the UK need to pay a fixed rate of 15% on their profits.
Taxes in the USA
Unfortunately, United States players do not have the same luck as their British counterparts. The problem of taxing has always been present in the USA, and many players have expressed their disagreement when it comes to taxing winnings higher than $1,200. Because of this, all large sums are paid via checks, and winning players need to present their ID if they want to make a withdrawal. Once their name is in the system, the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) requires winning players to report their winnings.
Both a casino and a winning player need to report any winnings higher than $1,200 made on games of chance, such as poker, keno, bingo, lottery, blackjack, and so on.
When it comes to slot machine winnings, there are no exceptions. If you won cash money or prizes (such as a car or a vacation), you are obligated to contact the IRS. A winning player will need to file the winnings under ‘other income’ by filling out the 1040 form.
The same goes for online slot winnings. All income made in land-based or online casinos on games of chance is taxable if you’re a citizen of the United States. If you win $1,200 or higher, you need to report your winnings to the IRS by filling out the W-2G form.
Be sure to check the taxation laws in your state. American states have the right to make their own laws so they might differ depending on the state you are in.
What Are the Tax Rates?
Once you hit the jackpot on slot machines, the casino will present you with a W-2G form where you will need to fill out some necessary information about yourself, such as your name, address, and social security number.
If you provide your social security number, the IRS will use the 25% rate on your winnings. However, if you fail to provide a social security number, the IRS can take 28% of your total winnings.
The W-2G form needs to contain the total amount of your winnings from slots as well.
If you like to indulge in other casino games, you should know that the W-2G form is also used for winnings made by playing keno, bingo, poker tournaments, and horse track races.
Difference Between State and Local Taxes
Unfortunately, players will need to report their winnings separately to both state and local authorities. This means that, if you travel to another state and win money on slot machines there, you will need to pay local taxes. However, you won’t be paying the taxes twice, as your home state is obligated to give you a tax return for the amount you paid to the other state.
Keep in mind that Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio are not subject to this rule.
Can I Deduct My Slot Losses?
Some good news for American players is that they can deduct their slot losses, but with specific regulations. One of the first rules concerning deductible losses says that a deductible amount depends on the number of your winnings. In other terms, if you win $500 on a bet and lose $1,000 on other bets, you will be compensated with $500 since that was the amount of your previous win. Moreover, if your losing streak continues for a year, you won’t be able to deduct any losses.
The next thing we want to mention is that you cannot deduct your losses without proper documentation. Keep all documentation regarding your wins and losses, including tickets, checks, slips, and so on.
All documentation needs to include the won or lost amount, date and time, gambling activity, casino address and name, and a list of people that were with you that day. It might sound like a lot of work, but it can significantly help you tighten the hole in your budget.
Taxes in Canada
Although a neighbour of the US, Canada does not have similar rules when it comes to slot machines taxation. Similar to the UK, if you’re a citizen of Canada, you are not required to pay taxes on your winnings, as they do not count as your regular source of income.
On the other hand, if you are a professional gambler whose primary job is playing games of chance, you will need to report your winnings.
So, if you like to play a game of poker or spin the reels on a slot machine, you won’t have to worry about taxes in Canada. You can walk away from a brick-and-mortar casino with cash in your hands after your big win!
Taxes in Australia
If you’re a citizen of Australia and new to casino games, you won’t need to worry about paying taxes – simply, concentrate on your gambling skills! Australian players do not need to pay taxes for their slot machine winnings, as the Australian law does not consider gambling to be anything more than a hobby.
Gambling is not considered a profession in Australia. Therefore, the government does not tax those winnings, as they are considered the secondary source of income. With that in mind, the government taxes casino operators and lottery organisers, as providing gambling activities is considered their profession.
Even professional gamblers do not succumb to taxation in Australia, as the government considers casino winnings to be ‘a result of good luck’.
However, you should check taxation laws in your state, as they differ from state to state.
Taxes in New Zealand
Unlike its neighbour, New Zealand has stricter taxation rules. Any winnings made from slot machines or other casino games are considered a taxable income if the player’s other incomes are low. This regulation applies to professional players.
Recreation New Zealand casino players are typically not succumbed to taxation. There have been cases of taxation if the winnings were significant, but the New Zealand government does not make it a policy to tax recreational winnings made in land-based casinos. Thus, residents of New Zealand that like to indulge in popular slot games or table games are not obligated to report their winnings.
On the other hand, casinos and other gambling institutions are obligated to pay taxes to the government of New Zealand.
Taxes in Other European Countries
It would prove challenging to list the taxation regulations of every European country, but we would like to give additional information to our European readers.
Players from the Netherlands are required to report any winnings made from slot games or other casino games and pay 29% on winnings higher than €454. Moreover, if you play online slot games on offshore sites, you will need to fill in a gaming tax return and report it to the government.
We need to mention Sweden, as it is one of the biggest gambling markets in the world. Similar rules apply to player’s winnings as it is the case in the neighbouring Netherlands. Players are required to report their winnings made in a licensed brick-and-mortar or online casino and pay 18% of their total profit.
However, these percentages are not that high compared to other European countries where the rates can go as high as 35%, like in Greece.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this article has proven to be helpful in your search for the best countries to play slots. Keep in mind that these numbers and regulations might change, as some countries are prone to changing their laws regularly, like Canada. Before deciding to try out your luck on slots, take some time to think about the numbers and whether you’re ready to pay some hefty taxation rates. Ultimately, we hope you’ll push your luck and win big!
We wish you success and remember to gamble responsibly.
Casino Guides, Casino Slots, Regulation, Tax, Winnings
The gaming industry is big business in the U.S., contributing an estimated US$240 billion to the economy each year, while generating $38 billion in tax revenues and supporting 17 million jobs.
What people may not realize is that slot machines, video poker machines and other electronic gaming devices make up the bulk of all that economic activity. At casinos in Iowa and South Dakota, for example, such devices have contributed up to 89 percent of annual gaming revenue.
Spinning-reel slots in particular are profit juggernauts for most casinos, outperforming table games like blackjack, video poker machines and other forms of gambling.
What about slot machines makes them such reliable money makers? In part, it has something to do with casinos’ ability to hide their true price from even the savviest of gamblers.
The price of a slot
An important economic theory holds that when the price of something goes up, demand for it tends to fall.
But that depends on price transparency, which exists for most of the day-to-day purchases we make. That is, other than visits to the doctor’s office and possibly the auto mechanic, we know the price of most products and services before we decide to pay for them.
Slots may be even worse than the doctor’s office, in that most of us will never know the true price of our wagers. Which means the law of supply and demand breaks down.
Casino operators usually think of price in terms of what is known as the average or expected house advantage on each bet placed by players. Basically, it’s the long-term edge that is built into the game. For an individual player, his or her limited interaction with the game will result in a “price” that looks a lot different.
For example, consider a game with a 10 percent house advantage – which is fairly typical. This means that over the long run, the game will return 10 percent of all wagers it accepts to the casino that owns it. So if it accepts $1 million in wagers over 2 million spins, it would be expected to pay out $900,000, resulting in a casino gain of $100,000. Thus from the management’s perspective, the “price” it charges is the 10 percent it expects to collect from gamblers over time.
Individual players, however, will likely define price as the cost of the spin. For example, if a player bets $1, spins the reels and receives no payout, that’ll be the price – not 10 cents.
So who is correct? Both, in a way. While the game has certainly collected $1 from the player, management knows that eventually 90 cents of that will be dispensed to other players.
A player could never know this, however, given he will only be playing for an hour or two, during which he may hope a large payout will make up for his many losses and then some. And at this rate of play it could take years of playing a single slot machine for the casino’s long-term advantage to become evident.
Short-term vs. long-term
This difference in price perspective is rooted in the gap between the short-term view of the players and the long-term view of management. This is one of the lessons I’ve learned in my more than three decades in the gambling industry analyzing the performance of casino games and as a researcher studying them.
Let’s consider George, who just got his paycheck and heads to the casino with $80 to spend over an hour on a Tuesday night. There are basically three outcomes: He loses everything, hits a considerable jackpot and wins big, or makes or loses a little but manages to walk away before the odds turn decidedly against him.
Of course, the first outcome is far more common than the other two – it has to be for the casino to maintain its house advantage. The funds to pay big jackpots come from frequent losers (who get wiped out). Without all these losers, there can be no big winners – which is why so many people play in the first place.
Specifically, the sum of all the individual losses is used to fund the big jackpots. Therefore, to provide enticing jackpots, many players must lose all of their Tuesday night bankroll.
What is less obvious to many is that the long-term experience rarely occurs at the player level. That is, players rarely lose their $80 in a uniform manner (that is, a rate of 10 percent per spin). If this were the typical slot experience, it would be predictably disappointing. But it would make it very easy for a player to identify the price he’s paying.
Raising the price
Ultimately, the casino is selling excitement, which is comprised of hope and variance. Even though a slot may have a modest house advantage from management’s perspective, such as 4 percent, it can and often does win all of George’s Tuesday night bankroll in short order.
This is primarily due to the variance in the slot machine’s pay table – which lists all the winning symbol combinations and the number of credits awarded for each one. While the pay table is visible to the player, the probability of producing each winning symbol combination remains hidden. Of course, these probabilities are a critical determinant of the house advantage – that is, the long-term price of the wager.
This rare ability to hide the price of a good or service offers an opportunity for casino management to raise the price without notifying the players – if they can get away with it.
Casino managers are under tremendous pressure to maximize their all-important slot revenue, but they do not want to kill the golden goose by raising the “price” too much. If players are able to detect these concealed price increases simply by playing the games, then they may choose to play at another casino.
This terrifies casino operators, as it is difficult and expensive to recover from perceptions of a high-priced slot product.
Getting away with it
Consequently, many operators resist increasing the house advantages of their slot machines, believing that players can detect these price shocks.
Our new research, however, has found that increases in the casino advantage have produced significant gains in revenue with no signs of detection even by savvy players. In multiple comparisons of two otherwise identical reel games, the high-priced games produced significantly greater revenue for the casino. These findings were confirmed in a second study.
Further analysis revealed no evidence of play migration from the high-priced games, despite the fact their low-priced counterparts were located a mere 3 feet away.
Importantly, these results occurred in spite of the egregious economic disincentive to play the high-priced games. That is, the visible pay tables were identical on both the high- and low-priced games, within each of the two-game pairings. The only difference was the concealed probabilities of each payout.
Armed with this knowledge, management may be more willing to increase prices. And for price-sensitive gamblers, reel slot machines may become something to avoid.