Bill introduced to restore full gambling loss write-off
Rep. Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat, has introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that would erase a provision in a massive tax and spending bill passed by Congress last week that limits offsets for gambling losses.
Titus, who is co-chair of the Congressional Gambling Caucus, called the bill “common-sense legislation” and said in a social media post on Monday afternoon that the bill is gaining bipartisan support.
The introduced legislation “would rightfully restore the full deduction for losses so gamblers don’t pay taxes on money they haven’t won,” Titus said in a release.
The tax and spending bill that narrowly passed last week by both the Senate and the House included a provision limiting the gambling loss offset to 90 percent of winnings, amending a decades-old policy to allow an offset up to 100 percent of winnings.
The language was inserted into the Senate bill at a time when Republican congressional leaders were attempting to gain support for the legislation from Senators who were critical of the bill’s massive impact on the budget deficit.
The tax and spending bill did not gain any support from Democrats in a narrowly divided Congress. Passage of Titus’s bill would only require support from her party and a handful of Republicans.
By Tuesday afternoon, Titus’s bill had five co-sponsors in the House, including two Republicans, one from Texas and one from Nevada.
The gambling industry, including horse racing lobbyists, have said that they will press for the language limiting offsets to be removed prior to the change going into effect for the 2026 tax year.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.