sportsbetting tax question

if you have a payout of $1200 or greater on a sports wager, do you have to fill out tax forms like if u get a slot machine jackpot of $1200 or greater?

Short answer: No. There are different rules for payouts on sports and tables than there is for slots. It has to be a 300-1 ratio. This has been discussed in some earlier threads.
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There should be a database here of the "best information" threads that people can refer to often.
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By the way, this is a perfectly legitimate question and I'm not saying you should have searched first, but it would be nice if we could somehow corral these questions into a FAQ of sorts.

An even shorter answer is: It depends on the casino.

While it would seem that something like this is a clear-cut follow-the-law sort of thing, interpreting the tax laws is anything BUT clear-cut.

DJ: Actually that's incorrect. The rules for reporting a win on a W2-G are fairly clear cut and not open to interpretation: $1200 on a slot or bingo machine, $1500 for Keno, $5,000 for poker tournaments, and $600 or more AND 300-1 on table games and other bets. Now, there is plenty of other tax law open to interpretation but this isn't one of them. (Back to reading the Federal Tax Code...)

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw2g.pdf

thats good to hear. jerrys nugget here in las vegas pays 6.5:1 on their 3 game parlays. i might start betting there this year depending on their lines.

heres the EV of a $100 wager getting 6 to 1 and 6.5 to 1:

($600)(1/8) - ($100)(7/8) = -$12.50
($650)(1/8) - ($100)(7/8) = -$6.25

heres the EV if you bet $100 on a game straightup, if u win bet it all on a 2nd game, and if u win bet it all on the third game:

(($100)(21/11)(21/11)(21/11)-$100)(1/8) - ($100)(7/8) = -$13.03