GENIUS IDEA

[kurosh]

Take all your extra money from poker, go play BJ with it. If you lose, write it off as a deduction. Wouldn't this be +EV?

[Knockwurst]

I guess that was what I was getting at with my Tax Q post, but you would want a number of reputable witnesses to confirm that you were at the table and those were your losses. A tournament receipt is easier. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[teddyFBI]

I thought of this too -- well, let's work it out:

Assumption: BJ is 52 / 48 % in house's favor. You have $100,000 in annual poker profits, on which the tax, for argument's sake, is $39,000.

Hypo A

Simply pay the tax. EV: +$61,000


Hypo B

You bet the entire $100,000 on a single hand (discounts possibility of split / double-down) with 48% chance of winning.

EV if you win: +$200,000 >> again pay 39% tax, so $122,000

EV if you lose: $0.

Overall EV of placing the bet = (122K x .48) + (0 x .52) = $58,560.

So no, it's still not worth it. The illusion that initially makes it SEEM like +EV is that you view the taxes you have to pay as a LOSS at the end of the year. Which is theoretically wrong...you really should view the tax you owe as accumulating on your winnings as soon as you post them.

[danzasmack]

With taxes from poker - say i win 1 big tourny for 225k. So do i pay taxes on that 225k right then and there or do I pay my end of year winnings?

So say im a big fish and dump my money at 50/100nl and lose 200k - do i pay on just the 25k?

[kurosh]

Ok... GENIUS IDEA #2 - microwave reese's peanut butter cups.

[kurosh]

Ok... that was a bad idea. The peanut butter does not melt as expected.

[MicroBob]

without responding to the rest of the sillyness of teddy-fbi's idea:

Blackjack typically breaks-down to something like this (for the non-card-counter)

42% - win
49% - loss
9% - push



It gets to be closer to a -1.5 or 2% disadvantage game for the player because of doubling-down and splitting (presumably when it's +EV...although this isn't always the case for the vast majority of players) and from the 3:2 pay-off on blackjack.


If you really were to bet all of your money on onew hand then you would be losing out on a lot of EV by denying yourself the opportunity to double-down or split when the opportunity were to arrive.


Also: it's not that hard to learn how the basics of counting-cards and make blackjack pretty much a break-even game with minimal effort
(more complicated for certain games including single-deck 6:5-payoff games and the continuous-auto-shuffler games where you're almost always being dealt from the top of the shoe)

[Hornacek]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok... that was a bad idea. The peanut butter does not melt as expected.

[/ QUOTE ]

i don't know why, but this made me smile.

Miscounting cards can actually put you in a worse situation that just playing normally.

Maybe if you were slightly above a high tax bracket, you could force yourself to write off a loss to avoid the extra taxes. But I know nothing about anything.