Tax Reporting / Date & Time winnings Query for Pokertracker Ring Games

[Big TR]

I was doing my tax planning and was trying to figure out how to summarize my online winnings from my PT DB. For those of you with some Access aptitude and Excel pivot table know-how, below you will find the SQL for a query I developed to consolidate all my sessions into one Access table. This table can be dumped into Excel for all sorts of pivot table fun.

You’ll have to open the PT DB and go to the query button. Go to the SQL part of a new query and paste the information below. You will have to go into the tables and figure out your “session.player_id”. Mine happens to be 1. Maybe it’s that way for everybody, you can test it and see.

One note, I have two session.player_id’s in the system due to different names at PS and PP. In my DB, it has consolidated all information since I have used the alias function. I’m not sure if this is the case for everybody.

I use the pivot table for two breakdowns. The first is showing winnings by day of the week and time. I use the session start time as the flag. If somebody wanted to, they could go into the hand history db and pull this information exactly.

The second is to consolidate my daily session winnings/losses into one number. Since each day counts as a session when I play, this is simple for me. This way I can easily total up my winnings and losses for my tax return lines; Line 21 Other Income on the 1040 and Line 27 Other Miscellaneous Deductions on Schedule A. It is important to me in Illinois to minimize what I put on line 21 on the 1040. Illinois does not grant any allowances for gambling losses. We must claim gross winnings as income. Including individual table winnings and losses nearly doubles my gross winnings.

SQL
SELECT Hour([session_start]) AS [TIME], session.player_id, session.amount_won, Weekday([session_start]) AS [DAY], game_level.game_level_desc, session.table_name, Month([session_start]) AS [Month], DateValue([session_start]) AS [Date], Year([session_start]) AS [Year]
FROM game_level INNER JOIN [session] ON game_level.game_level_id = session.game_level_id
WHERE (((session.player_id)=1));

[TTChamp]

[ QUOTE ]
Since each day counts as a session when I play

[/ QUOTE ]

Good post.

I am curious if this decision was arbitrary on your part or it came from a tax pro. My understanding is that a session is not precisely defined. I was actually considering count my sessions by week thereby further minimizing "winnings".

[TTChamp]

BTW, people in the internet forum are always asking about this stuff. It is probobly worth cross posting there. Moderator help???

[Big TR]

I'm a CPA. My understanding is that in the case of an audit, a live player has to count each trip to the casino as a session. Overall, it's probably not a huge deal if you track it weekly. If you have adequate records, the IRS can't hassle you too much.

Also, I'll post it in the internet forum per your advice.