On a related subject -- how well do folks track their food/hotel/mileage expenses for tax purposes? Do you do per diem somehow for the food, and if so, how does that work?

Hotel and mileage are obvious travel expenses. I eat whether I am at home or in Reno or Los Angeles or Las Vegas, so food expenses are not so obvious travel expenses.

In the end it is going to depend on IRS rules, at least for US professional players.

Is this a rule in most casinos or only in specific ones? My experience is that you can add promo money to the table regardless of your stack size/buyin cap, but I could just be wrong on that.

Why wouldn’t it change how much you pay?

It’s not the cost of playing. Tipping is entirely voluntary. If the amount you’re tipping causes you emotional distress TIP LESS. Don’t just blindly chuck the dealer $2 a hand.

I would recommend to everybody that they track tips just for a day and decide if they’re comfortable giving that much money away.

I'd direct the tipping discussion to the containment thread: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...hread-1045503/ There's page after page about it.

I definitely don't track promos separately (unless it's something stupid like the 5k mega high hand in Tampa). It's not like it's bonus money you were forced to opt in and pay for it. Tips, food and gas is cost of doing business as someone pointed out.

I don't track tips, tokes, or the (occasional) $7 I pullout of my stack for a beer maybe 6-12 times a year. I'd estimate I miss about $300 a year in my stats as a result. I won't lose any sleep over this.

I try not to me too anal. Which is saying a lot for me.

It turns out that the IRS agrees, sort of. Business travelers have the choice of (a) keeping track throughout the year of their precise meal expenses, including tips, while traveling on business and deduct 50% of the total; or (b) use the per diem allowances for Federal employees for all of your travel throughout the year.

When I travel to (say) Las Vegas for poker, it turns out that lots of my meals are comped, or at least covered by player points. This might make it seem a no-brainer to use the Federal per diem rather than expensing half of the tips and odd meal expenses. But bear in mind that the comps should be included in your taxable income.

Get a CPA to help with your end of year filing if you're on the fence or unsure about what is the "best" approach.

It's literally their job to help you pay as little taxes as legally possible.

A big mistake I see new players do is fudge their win rates

Yeah you lost to that one outer or the donkey cracked your AA with AJ aipf but once you begin to justify losses and calculate "what your win rate should be" rather than what it actually is you're setting yourself up for failure.

Seen a number of people do that, none of them lasted very long and are officially the type to sell their car and pawn their speakers before having it up because their excel spreadsheet tells them they are crushers.

This doesn’t include dealer tips each pot I win. I probably lose a couple thousand a year this way. Anyone else know how much they lose in tips yearly?

When I played full time I "lost" ~5k/year in tips.
Coincidentally I also got a great deal in that I only paid 5k to reasonably ensure game integrtitt.

7 hours a day or in my case, 30 hours a week, 40 weeks a year.
1200 hours a year, @3 hands per hour at $1.5/hand. Yeah, it adds up, but it's likely better than the alternative.

Holy cow! I played over 2,200 hours last year so I can only imagine how much I tipped. Were you a stingy tipper, generous, or in between? I usually just tip $1 or a little more in very big pots.

I tipped $1 on every hand I won where there was a raise and a call.
I tipped an extra $1 on hands that were "large". I tipped a different (sometimes additional) $1 on hands where the dealer actively encouraged a "better game". $5k is my best estimate. I didnt track it specifically.

Thanks. Sounds like I’m underestimating how much goes to tips each year.

I tip at least $2 for huge pots depending on how much I like the dealer, $1 for normal sized pots and $0 for taking down the blinds, a tiny cbet flop heads up or taking down a tiny limped pot. Although if I like the dealer or especially if I've tipped $0 several tiny pots in a row, I'll tip $1.

I generally tip 15-20% for food runners (closer to 20% or more if it's a small order so they get at least $3). Very occasionally tip the floor and I try to buy chips myself (mostly so people don't see me put reload chips in my pocket and assume I'm there for blood). I generally never tip the cage or chip runners.

That's not being a good tipper. I'm definitely in the bottom 1/3 of tippers. But even that still probably takes off 1bb/hr from my win rate at least. Probably closer to 2bb/hr at 1/2.

ended up the month +$6390, played 16 sessions total over the month, all at 5/5 and 3/5. decent start to the year. could have gotten more volume in, I also played like total crap for a week straight and lost every session I sat down for, was getting over a cold and should have just stayed home. results look like:
+$35
-$362
+$2810
+$579
+$500
+$1510
+$2080
-$222
-$1100
-$1042
-$288
-$500
-$750
+$2040
+$1000

Nice job/congrats! How many hrs?

80

Equal chance of winning, 30 hands per hour, $1 per hand, 9 handed game, $3.33/hr in tip.

If you somehow win more hands and bigger pots, in which you do tip more, then expect to pay probably close to $4 - $5 per hour.

1000 hours = $3,000 to $5,000 easily.

Not so surprisingly, rake works the same way, and in some ways, jackpot does, too, especially depends on promotions and time of the week/day that you play.

That's why it is hard to consistently beat a low stake game, even harder when your house rakes $4 or more. It is probably somewhere around $17 to $19 hourly in rake + tip in a $4 rake game. Beating it for 10bb/hr in a 1/3 game is actually more like beating it for 16bb/hr.

2003 called; they want their rake back.

They still rake only 4 in AC, assuming it hasn't gone up since November, but then you have to go to horrible AC.

Its hard to consistently beat a low stakes game?

Not for you sir, you are above math and all that non-sense they called conventional poker.

Considering that the majority of poker players dont win, yes.