I've been playing on the site for about a month and love it so far. Unfortunatley, i have not been keeping track of my day to day sessions, so I know how much i'm up right now, but i do not have it broken down per session.

When it comes to tax time, if I'm audited, don't they need to see not only how much I've made, but how much I've made per session. I'm keeping track now, but what do i do for the pasts month worth of play? I'm guessing there's no way for GP to send us all of our table play since the beginning.

I seriously doubt you are going to get a 1099 from Global. Not that it is good advice, or any for that matter, but it would be very very difficult for the IRS to find out about Global on their own. PayPal gives you a 1099-K if you meet certain criteria and that is not too likely if you are just playing on Global, either. Much like the stock market and other income sources, they need to know the profit or loss. I've never itemized poker winnings, but I suppose it is possible.

Take it for what it is worth, a neighbor and friend of mine is a department head at the IRS. He told me outright that most of the mistakes and unpaid taxes they find are because the payee volunteers the information. The people that do the audits are not super geniuses, they are nosy bean counters collecting a paycheck. If the value is substantial, hire a tax attorney to handle it all.

I could see you needing to track for tax purposes with winning and losing sessions if you were playing for cash. You aren't. You are playing for $weeps Cash, which is NOT USD!

Then you sell your $weeps Cash back to global when you process your Cash out process, and at that point I think the IRS would consider it income.

With that said, I have gone to as much tax and account school as your average tax helper at Wal-Mart, so don't print this out and show it when you are audited

But the whole model here is we aren't playing for cash. So then how can you pay taxes?

Do you pay taxes on your Tiny Tower Dollars? Or the doughnuts from The Simpsons game? I don't. Nor would I.

I am playing a skill based sweepstakes. If I collect all of the pieces in the McDonald's Monopoly game, but I don't ever cash it in, what would my tax liability be? It would be zero.

Just my two cents... or .02 $weeps Cash of advice

Global should keep records of your winnings like any other poker site. Even if they don't you just subtract what you deposited vs what you withdrew + current bankroll on Dec 31st. At least you'll have an accurate total of how much you made (I file pro so netting wins is super easy). I've never written down my sessions nor will I. That's something nitty tax nerds worry about. Btw, it's your moral obligation to **** the IRS any way you can.

i figured if you were filing as a pro, which from what i understand, you're more likely to be audited, is that they ask for your session play to prove winnings and losses. or have you not been audited before?

Good point splaya, it isn't being played for money, bean counter school trained you well, good looks.

1099 income is more likely to be audited, but if you are not in high enough numbers, then it really isn't a very high risk. I've only ever filed based on what the paperwork I get from the casino. Depending on how your banking is set up, online is fairly easy to have unnoticed.

No never been audited and I don't think being pro makes you more likely. There's like a less than 1% chance of getting audited and they mostly go after wealthier people from what I've heard. I don't need to keep track of sessions if I net my wins. (pretty sure there's no law that says you have to keep records of you sessions anyway)

Taxation is theft and it's done by extortion. "Pay us or we put you in a cage and we kill you if you resist." All the nit tax nerds say the "burden of proof is on you". That's total b.s. imo. The tax code is so insanely complicated that there's zero % chance anyone on earth does their taxes correctly so I just pay them how I see fit. I'm already being robbed 25-30% of my income so why would I stress out about how I'm being robbed?? As long as you make an attempt to pay what you "owe" you'll be fine. I never pay my quarterlies on time because it's a p.i.t.a. and the penalty is so small I don't even care. /rant

OP, if you're worried just make up sessions in a log book and back date it. It's honestly not worth worrying about if you're just playing recreational.

PayPal will issue you the proper tax forms IF and only IF you have in income of $20K for that tax year. So if that's what you're worried look to PayPal. So if you don't get more than $20K going into your PayPal, I wouldn't worry about it.

I only know this because I used to sell a bunch of stuff on eBay.

It's $20k AND 200 transactions, I'm pretty sure it has to be both.

Are you sure it is 200 transactions? I am optimistic to get past 20k this year and I suppose that if and when paypal sends me an IRS form, I will take it from there.

No, I am not sure. That is just what I have been told from numerous people who I trust. I can't specifically show you where it says it or prove it myself.

This explains the 1099-K parameters

https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news...-k-what-is-it/

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099k.pdf

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/...-k/td-p/780083

Thank you for the links, those help quite a bit.

This is kind of important. How exactly are we to deal with Global Poker tax-wise? How are we supposed to pay taxes on sweepstakes? This really needs to be fleshed out with the Global representative.

I don't see how someone in Australia is going to offer you much help with your taxes. Better off talking to someone local, walk into an HR Block and ask them. Sweepstakes winnings should be taxed at your regular rate anyway I believe.

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Thought they might have some specific advice since this is a new business model, and they've been dealing with legal teams trying to get established.

Giving players specific advice sounds like a recipe for legal trouble if they get it wrong, which seems inevitable when trying to advise individuals who will each have their own unique circumstances.

This is a specific circumstance for all of us for which there is no real precedent. The least they could offer is a bit of information. I think they could do that without putting themselves into any legal warm water.


Talking about taxes (in a general way about a specific topic) is not something that is wrong, illegal, or even particularly dangerous if done in the proper way.

I suppose technically we are playing sweepstakes and not poker. We need to know these types of things and quite frankly they need to tell us if they want people to play there. No one else can tell us but them, really, unless one of us hires special counsel and tries to figure it out.

They owe it to us, in a way.

I suppose the only thing I need to know is if I am specifically playing sweepstakes or poker.


Certainly they can (and really have to) answer that.

find out how sweepstakes winnings are treated in your jurisdiction

I'm playing poker with sweepstakes. So the question remains, am I playing poker or sweepstakes? I'm beginning to think I'm playing poker instead but since I'm winning and losing sweepstakes it may be that it doesn't count as losses and gains the same way that a cash game would.

It is sweepstakes. If they were to try and 1099 you for 'winnings' on the poker table they would close themselves down. If you don't surpass a certain threshold for the 1099-K, no reporting will be forwarded off to the IRS. It will be entirely up to you as to how much and the manner of which you report them on your return. That will be specific to the individual filer.

It probably doesn't matter since poker winnings and sweepstakes winnings are likely to be taxed at short term income.

It could certainly matter when it comes to reporting gains and losses since sweepstakes are not real money. I'm uncertain. Those sweeps don't become money until GP converts them to cash so poker players might find a bit of tax relief in that sense.

That shouldn't matter. You are 'participating in a sweepstakes'. How are you reporting gains and losses? You are going to enter a single number, profit or loss. You don't itemize the individual game. If you bought $100 worth of State sponsored scratch off lottery tickets, there is no breakdown of what tickets you played or how much each returned. The only 100% assurance you can get as to how to file will be from your accountant. relying on me or a rep at Global would be very risky.

Personally, I could care less what Global claimed was the right way to report them. I pay my accountant for a reason.

You actually are supposed to itemize the individual sessions/wins/expenses etc.