Found the answer. https://www.irs.gov/uac/Business-or-...for-Deductions

You either pay the SE tax or you don't. There is no half SE tax. IOW if you are a pro you pay it on the net. If you are a rec the SE tax is not relevant.

See above has no bearing. You either are a pro or you are not. In the case you describe it seems unlikely that you would avoid the pro status but it's not that simple

It can be an annual election. It is largely facts and circumstance driven

Gambling rules are specific to gambling income and deductions only. Though admittedly, they mirror hobby loss rules in many ways

Oops, I meant you pay half of what you would pay for SE tax. 6.2% SS and 1.3% medicare. The employer pays the other half.

One benefit of filing as a pro if poker is your only income is you can contribute to an IRA and solo 401k which also lowers your taxable income.

Slim gotta go back to the Ron Swanson avatar.

The comparison is pro vs rec not pro vs. unemployed. I hesitate to give hard and fast advice, but if you are otherwise unemployed, sustain yourself through poker winnings and play a material number of hours, I suspect you would correctly be classified as a pro for tax purposes.

I would be tempted then to be a part time bartender just to make enough to max out my Roth IRA and declare the rest as hobby.

Yup. If you have a weak mental game you're basically dead in the water as an aspiring poker pro.

TIL people pay taxes on poker winnings

Some people win a decent amount and want to invest it. Others do not want that money 'unsecured' at home and put it in a savings account. If it is in the bank and not reported as income they will not withstand an audit...

3 words: safety deposit box.

There is a finite number of things that you can pay for with cash that leave no paper trail. I would think most pros max out these cash payments (groceries, gas for car, etc) and then report something closer to the difference as income. But there is no getting around paying a mortgage or car loan without leaving paper trails, so you kinda need to show some income sometime

Usually gotta pay for your hookers and blow with cash anyway.

That is obviously a Cost of Doing Business expense....

I did say groceries, gas for car, etc

I just hit about 300 hours at 2/4 live and am winning (ahead when I go home) 57% of all my sessions, but had a few big losses putting me slightly in the red, when looking at the $ total.

Q: In terms of figuring out if I suck; does the 57% win rate "trump" the actual loss I am experiencing, or is the red/total $ all that matters?

All that matters is the money baby. Winning % is totally irrelevant imo.

I know this isn't a new idea or anything, but I'm getting back into live poker again after some time off, and playing this weekend struck me how silly the idea of an hourly rate is (at least in a room like Borgata).

I played 2/5 this weekend. I played 20ish hours split into 5 sessions. For two of those sessions, the table was so good that I would be absolutely shocked if my hourly wasn't near $100 per, maybe even better than that. In one of the sessions, when I had the absolute Jesus seat... I would absolutely bet I could have sustained $100+ an hour if there were some way for those exact conditions to remain forever (which of course there isn't).

For the other three sessions, I could probably stay ahead of the rake if I played really well. My absolute laser-focused A game may have been like a $10-an-hour winner in those games. I'm not even sure of that.

I know none of this is breaking any new ground, just seems so impossible to me to even hazard a guess at my "winrate" in 2/5 when the table conditions swing so hugely.

The reason I think I do well overall is I played two long sessions at the great tables and never more than 2-3 downs at the bad tables.

Trying to put a number on my winrate seems basically like an exercise in asking how well I'm going to table select/how good I'm going to run with random assignments of table/seats.

It's all one long session, bruh.

Wait so if you're saying it's 15.3%, why is the amount you listed($2930) 30% of your income?

Additionally, I thought SE tax and filing as a gambler were two completely different things if I'm not mistaken.

The 15.3% is accurate but I'm not sure his calculations are. If you file as a gambler you are subject to the SE tax on taxable profits. Not sure what you mean 2 separate things.

Anybody who is self-employed pays both halves of the social security tax. If you file as a professional poker player, or as a self-employed anything, you have to pay both halves.

If you're an employee in any industry, your employer is paying half of the social security tax--you only see half of the tax as a withholding on your W2; if you then profit from poker on the side as a hobby, you pay income tax on your winnings, but you don't pay social security tax on it. The social security tax is only a tax on wages from work; income tax is a tax on all income from whatever source derived.

Pretty sure the 30% figure is income tax + social security tax.

The amount of social security you recieve at retirement is tied to the amount you paid in while working. Declaring as a pro and paying your social security tax entitles you to draw more social security when you retire.

Also, it keeps you out of prison for tax fraud.

LOL @ "social security you receive at retirement." If there is even such a thing in 30+ years, they'll have had to print so much new money, that the amount I contributed will be peanuts.