How do you expect the U.S. to pay for it's empire, give billions to israel and Egypt and Jordan and Africa because they won't wear condoms when they do the Nasty.GeorgeD said:
EasyRhino said:
Right, but if they start taxing sport fishermen on the fish they take out of the water, there's a justification for deducting the equipment you use to take that fish. That would be fair. But we're talking about the IRS, fair is whatever they say it is.GeorgeD said:
This system is really ridiculous. They will tax your winnings heavily, but they won't offset the tax burden on losses.Automatic Monkey said:
The part that annoys me most is that if your form of advantage gambling is not called "blackjack" but is called "options trading" or "futures trading" and the person handling your transactions wears a suit and tie instead of a gay shirt and a nametag, you're now considered a legitimate businessman and your losses and trading expenses are deductible. You could be a scumbag who shorts a stock and then sabotages it from the inside and the SEC might not like it, but as far as the IRS is concerned you're just like any other businessman.Mimosine said:This system is really ridiculous. They will tax your winnings heavily, but they won't offset the tax burden on losses.
At least in the stockmarket capital gains is balanced with capital losses.
What is the effective tax rate on gambling income anyway? Is it equivalent to short term capital gains? or worse?!
Actually, casino gambling is significantly different from financial securities trading. You can in fact make educated guesses (based on chains of causality) about price fluctuations. However, you cannot do this with most casino gambling (Blackjack is somewhere in the middle in that you can use statistical techniques to make estimates of fluctuating probabilities, however you cannot use causal chains of reasoning (i.e. "people prefer x, y has occurred which will mean people's preferences are not satisfied, therefore ceteris paribus, z will occur")).Automatic Monkey said:
I don't know, the chain of reasoning in BJ seems pretty casual to me- there are a lot of high cards left in the shoe, high cards being played give the player the advantage therefore I will bet more now. The Intrade platform identifies derivatives trading for what it really is, as you can trade contracts on changes in stock indices just like you can on the weather.StudiodeKadent said:
As I acknowleged, Blackjack is somewhere in between traditional "casino gambing" (i.e. games where there is absolutely no way to make educated logical approximations as to what will happen next on the basis of past events) and making extrapolations on the basis of market information (which allows you to make intelligent approximations). Indeed you could probably argue that Blackjack is on a similar level when card-counting in that you are making educated guesses about future outcomes on the basis of previous outcomes (although its also arguable that statistical reasoning is less 'connective' than logical reasoning but thats a different point).Automatic Monkey said:
First, derivatives are simply financial products whose value is derived from another underlying asset. Derivative price fluctuations can be intelligently predicted by, for example, looking at the market for the underlying asset. If the world supply of bananas is decimated by a disease, you can expect derivatives for banana trading to be effected significantly (people that are purchasing forwards in bananas (i.e. they agreed upon a future price) are going to be very happy).
Actually, your effective tax rate will be lower than your marginal tax rate, but gambling income is lumped in with short term capital gains and salary as regular income.EasyRhino said:Your marginal income tax rate, just like anything else.Mimosine said:What is the effective tax rate on gambling income anyway? Is it equivalent to short term capital gains? or worse?!
But there is little distinction between speculating in a market and putting a portion of one's money on the half of the roulette wheel that you predict the ball will land on and can predict accurately most of the time, by watching the movement of the ball and the wheel. It's the same thing. Being casinos have moral implications it is understandable why the squares in government don't want to acknowledge its legitimacy as a profitable profession. Despite also being zero-sum propositions it's easier to accept derivatives trading because they wear the same uniforms and work in the same buildings as securities traders. If casinos offered trading as a table game (Eureka!*) these people would freak out over the sacrilege of comingling the venerable profession of trading with the vice of gambling.StudiodeKadent said:
No, they are not the same thing. Speculation, as I said, is an informational process. You can use information about previous events to predict future events. You cannot do this is most casino games (i.e. most casino games are based on independent trials). Barring unbalanced Roulette wheels, you cannot make educated guesses about the future outcome on a Roulette wheel based upon the outcomes of preceeding trials. No causal chains can be grasped.Automatic Monkey said:
But that's not what I said. You can place a roulette bet after the ball is dropped and before it comes to rest and there are those who can do this with an advantage. The information you use is the position and speed of the ball relative to that of the wheel. There is very little difference between that and technical trading.StudiodeKadent said:
I wasn't aware of this. Is it possible to do this within the rules of the game?Automatic Monkey said:
Yes. A short time after the launch of the ball, the croupier waves his hand over the felt to signal that no more bets may be placed. A bet after that point in time is referred to as 'past posting' and is against the rules. However, within the time period between the ball's launch and the croupier's signal, bets may still be placed.StudiodeKadent said:
Understand. Thanks for that... I wasn't aware. The time between ball launch and 'no more bets' is very short if I remember correctly so it must be a very difficult trick to pull offPelerus said: