in the $5000 case, he would lose money because of the tax bill. So he comes out ahead by refusing.

Note he is still an ahat for not paying support due. But that was true before he won the money. And is still true even if his decision makes financial sense

Witness Protection (just to offer an out there suggestion). Seriously-divorce related financial stuff can be watched very closely. During my separation my ex got peeved that the ATM card got used at the casino, nothing came of it other than a tantrum though. Kids knew I played a lot of pokerz-no idea if she did. Never hid anything. Of course, always paid on time and never hassled about the small stuff with the kids--if she didnt' pay her share of some expense, I just dealt with it.

It could be for any of the many reasons. My guess is that for a big jackpot, a player refusing the money in order to not provide ID/card, is banned from the casino or from all casinos statewide.

A couple stories:

Player wins a table share of a BBJ. It may have been the winning hand, can't remember. The cage found that he was delinquent in his child support payments and ended up not getting a penny for himself. He was thrilled!!! Being behind on the payments was a source of stress and he wanted to make it right and this helped. Of course you ask why was he playing poker instead of working a 2nd job or something, and I couldn't tell you that. But he had genuine happiness to have the burden, or at least a good chunk of it, off his back.

We had a female player who never used a card. When splash pots happened, I noticed she immediately folded preflop every time. Then she goofed because she tried to cash a check at the cage. Turned out that her name was flagged because she was banned in a neighboring state for gambling with her family business' money. Our casino uses reciprocity on those things with at least that neighboring state since the casinos are within an hour of each other.

The casino cage has access to private information such as whether a player is delinquent on child support?

If state law requires them to run his SSN through a database before paying out a jackpot to him, sure.

Yes. There is a database called Gypsies. I don't know if that's how it is spelled but that's how it's pronounced at least. In my state they do it anyway. Could be a state-by-state thing. I know we at least run it through the system whenever there is a taxable event for a poker win, such as a Bad Beat or a large enough tournament win.

Any taxable amount will require your SSN to be ran and if the state is involved in collecting delinquent child support or if you owe back taxes or anything else you may owe to the government, yes the casino will know about it and your winnings will go to the government to distribute as they see fit.

An older man denied a $500 high hand here recently. He said he has previously been the victim of identity theft and doesn't want to take any risks with strangers handling his DL/SSN.

I'm not sure why it's inconceivable to turn down a four figure score. I know some multi-millionaires that regular some of the rooms down here who wouldn't bend over to pick up a $100 bill. Privacy trumps money.

Because most poker players can't conceive of earning a 6-figure income?

This thread sounds like the discussions that were had at the tables of my local casino this past summer. The casino changed their rules so as you're required to login with your players card in order to play. If you don't want to use it, you don't play. Don't have one, take your ID to the podium and they'll make you one but you're not dealt in until they return with a card and you're swiped in.

This obviously aggravated some people, but I have yet to see anyone decide not to play because of it, though I'm sure it happens. Most players that voiced their displeasure with the rule claimed it was for privacy reasons. Most players that always used their card anyway speculated that delinquent child support, being on the casino banned list, or possible outstanding warrants were probably the most common reasons for people not wanting to use a players card.

I've always used a player's card, but I also find it a bit ridiculous that this casino mandates you have one to play poker while you can still degen it up in the pits for untold thousands of dollars without using a player's card.

That surprises me. I would think it would be more of a requirement that table games would want a player card than poker. In table games, they care who wins and loses and are keeping track of players' buy-ins to the dollar to make sure when they hit certain IRS reporting thresholds.

My husband's company endured a multi-year IRS audit. One of the first things they asked for was any and all casino player card numbers. This wasn't a problem since the only reason my husband has ever stepped into a casino was with me, to go to dinner or a show.

I refused to provide them with any of my casino information or activity voluntarily but they asked for it, repeatedly.

The only money I ever spend in a casino is on poker or meals. If I have been lucky enough to earn a gambling IRS form, W2G, I report it. So while I could have given my card info up, I figured they should earn their money and bring a court order instead.

There was a school teacher union local leader in upstate New York and recently a church person in Pennsylvania that had embezzled money mostly for gambling.

My local bank manager when I was a kid embezzled to fund dog race betting. I remember that because my Dad was hired to be the manager afterwards.

Gambling debts=Pretty common reason for financial shenanigans.

https://www.syracuse.com/news/index....big_at_tu.html

Be careful. Not all common rules apply when dealing with the IRS. The often can make you prove your claims. They don’t even need to ask you for XYZ only tell you you must support your claims as filed on your 1040 or whatever form.

But the real question is why is your casino information, even a W-2G pertinent to a multi year audit of your husbands company? BTW, that question is rhetorical.

Reading comprehension? They want to look at casino records to see if and who had run up big losses or gambles above their income level.

My wife is a tax cpa with some clients who own businesses. We are talking 8 and 9 figure accounts. It is not a normal IRS request in an audit.

Poker play drags down your player rating a LOT and will crash the EV of comp and few offers well into the 4, even 5, figure range. Not everywhere but enough that some players who’ve been burned once will never give poker room their player cards again.

That and sometimes your casino host will come to the poker room and try to annoy you into moving to table games.

Other stuff does sound plausible though.

Does anybody have experience in this playing in bigger tournaments? EX: $400 buy-in 5k cash in a tourney. Are you saying that if I am being garnished for student loans, I won't get paid by the casino because do a background check before paying out?

Not sure if they do this for tourney winnings, but:

http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-new...er-casino-typo


--klez

That's a sillly situation. If the money is really a significant amount and the lady has any smarts to her, she'll hire a law firm to sue the state and possibly the casino for the funds. Sure she'll lose a portion of it to law fees but if the money is really that big/important, then she'll have it in a couple of months.

If you read the article or at least the version I saw suing is completely unneeded. Cont@ct state provide proof of identity and the error and they fix it.

The casino has now paid her. It's unclear whether it was because the state fixed the error, or whether they are paying out of pocket (until the state fixes/repays) to make the bad PR go away. My money is on the latter.

It is clear that at first they told her it was her problem to deal with with the state, and after taking a day off of work, that problem wasn't going to be fixed anytime soon. It took a week after her state visit to get paid. Without the press articles about it, she'd probably still be waiting.

In fact, if you search google for it, you'll still only find articles about how she got screwed, it took me about 5 minutes to find what appears to be the single article about how she got paid.

that's a great example of casinos being both scumbags and run by idiots.
this woman is just going to piss back whatever she legitimately won anyway and they still make her jump through hoops to get it when it was their mistake.

Version I saw the casino claimed per state Rey’s they were ere precluded from providing a replacement payout. True or not I certainly cannot say. But if true would reduce their scummines. Probably still could have managed it better.

So people who play house games don't claim free money because it's -EV? We're such born suckers ....