For amateurs, the IRS has a concept of gambling "sessions". You net your win/loss within a session. You report the total of all winning sessions as income, and itemize your losing sessions (which can't exceed wins).
States and cities have varying laws. Basically most states with casinos allow you to do the same as on federal returns. Those without require you to report all wins as income and not deduct losses, effectively making it impossible to gamble with any regularity (since you could easily owe taxes on $200k of income, of which you only saw $10k... or worse, -$10k).
Pros can simply net their wins/losses (while maintaining a record-keeping notebook). To qualify as a pro you have to derive almost all income from gambling.
Gamblers get worried when people want to close tax loopholes (such as itemized deductions for certain things). They can come scarily close to losing their way of making a living.
States and cities have varying laws. Basically most states with casinos allow you to do the same as on federal returns. Those without require you to report all wins as income and not deduct losses, effectively making it impossible to gamble with any regularity (since you could easily owe taxes on $200k of income, of which you only saw $10k... or worse, -$10k).
Pros can simply net their wins/losses (while maintaining a record-keeping notebook). To qualify as a pro you have to derive almost all income from gambling.
Gamblers get worried when people want to close tax loopholes (such as itemized deductions for certain things). They can come scarily close to losing their way of making a living.