How Taxes Work for Sports Bets From Sites Like FanDuel and DraftKings | WSJ Your Money Briefing

In 2022, legal sports wagers on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings totaled $93.2 billion.

Wall Street Journal tax reporter Laura Saunders joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss tax rules that sports bettors sometimes overlook.

0:00 IRS and sports betting
1:12 How winnings are taxed
1:40 How losses fit into taxes
3:59 Could you be audited from gambling?
4:25 Gambling at casinos and taxes
6:35 What CPAs and tax advisors say about gambling

Your Money Briefing
WSJ's personal-finance podcast features the news that affects your money and what you do with it, breaking down complicated money questions from spending and saving to investing and taxes.

#SportsBetting #Gambling #WSJ

[eligreg]

It should be illegal for them to tax gambling. I’m betting my own hard earned money not them

[yayo]

0 tax in the UK if you win money through gambling.

[matratzac]

It is 100% illogical to have to pay tax on your initial stake. That claim doesn’t even make sense in the most basic sense. You bet $1000 on a favored home team to win $250 how in the everloving f can you claim you’re taxed on 1250 (wager + profit). That tax would be more than your “winnings” in the first place! That’s not only illogical, its punitive and a bad faith argument to even make. That makes no sense. Winnings are ordinary income but winnings do not include your returned capital bc thats not your winnings. Whoever says gross winnings include initial stake doesn’t understand sports betting bc that makes 0 sense. Even when you bet on Fanduel, it says “to win ___” and then your total payout includes winnings and wager. Then u go under settings and “total winnings” includes wager. That’s disingenuous and nonsense on multiple levels

[williamreid]

I believe people are misunderstanding what she's saying. The win only gets reported to the IRS if it's a 300:1 wager AND win over $600. So if you make 1000 bets at $5 each on 1:1 and win on every bet, you would have $10, 000 in total winnings for all bets ($5, 000 of true winnings). But since each bet was neither 300:1 or over $600 in winnings, nothing would get reported to the IRS. You would be responsible for reporting the $5, 000 of true winnings yourself. At least that's how I understand what she's saying in addition to the information on the FanDuel tax FAQ page.

[ranjanclandad]

I believe that you report your winning gains. If you bet 500 and win a 700 slot jackpot = you report winnings gains of 200 on taxes. Must be in a session (a bit complicated) and must keep records

[elodizdarevic]

I’m confused so I won’t some money and lost some on draft kings and I’m down for the year do I still have to pay taxes on the winnings

[BLAZEruners]

I'm not addicted, I'm committed...

[Realkevv]

Always keep 30% of your winnings to the side not what you wager

[davidng]

US tax laws should be enough to discourage all Americans from gambling

[ScottDieken]

so are you saying if you keep your +30, 000 longshots to under 600 dollar winnings, gambling winnings no matter how much are not taxable?

[TheFujiwuji]

If you lost $1000 in sports bets and won $1100 in sports bets on the same betting site, the profit to your wallet is obviously $100. But the IRS taxes you on $1100, which is more than your $100 profit, so you basically lose, even if you won. Same thing happens in stocks. So best to never play or invest ever.

[huntr]

Just simply explain most people never make a profit and never owe taxes, and the majority above that eventually lose and have a zeroed out tax basis

[jordencogswell]

so if i won $600 bust lost $750 for the year do i even need to report it ? since i didn’t actually win anything

[btroy]

Gambling problem is getting worse in America, stock market and sport anything you could bet on it

[rickyesparza]

What if you only win like 15 - 20 on bets but total I won over 600 do I have to report, even if I only took out 200 or lest most of it I betted it again

[auro]

how? digital gambling is more complex where hackers scam

[kingzts]

so unless you hit that crazy parlay….no need to report

[plneet]

So you can legit break even after winning one year and losing another and you get taxed and lose LOO

[LeftWingNationalist]

I do sports betting all the time. But I stopped filing taxes 2 years ago. Im just gonna immigrate in a few years. Not giving the government money when they wont even give me comprehensive government healthcare in exchange. Go find the money elsewhere cuz idgaf.

[clintongwanyama]

Stay away from sport betting, I lost more than $5300 on sports betting last year