Did the Casino Staff rip me off?

You know those mechanical roulette machines that have 8-12 chairs around them? Ball spins like usual under a glass dome.

Last night at the L'Auberge du Lac Resort in lake charles:


I sit down, put 20- 100's into the reciever, put the whole lot on red, and it wins.

My screen says "hand pay, wait for attendent"

10 minutes later i finally flag a woman down, she comes over and collects my social security number and license and tells me she will return soon.

5 minutes later she returns with an additional staff member, a tax document, and 3760 in cash: 4000 Minus 6% state tax for "winning 4000".

I tell the woman i have not won 4000, i have won 2000, and that i would rather not pay a 6% tax on "winning 4000" when i had only won 2000, Reminding her that the casino most likely would not be paying tax on 4000 had i instead lost my 2000 wager.

She responds, "it is what it is, if you would like to forfeit the winnings that is your business"

Obviously, i took the 3760 and went about my evening.

Cant help but suspect i was victim to an deliberately incorrect payout.

Can anyone confirm one way or another?

Thanks.

That's how the machines work.

If you hit four K's on $5 DDB it pays $1250 and are taxed on $1250, even though you only won $1225. It's the same thing, just a little different.

You honestly thought the casino deliberately paid you incorrectly?

http://revenue.louisiana.gov/LawsPolicies/1525PublishedVersion.pdf

Quote:

2. Additionally following current Department of
Revenue practice, casinos that pay slot machine winnings in
excess of $1,200 should issue a form W2-G and withhold at
a rate of 6 percent of the slot machine winnings regardless of
the Internal Revenue Code withholding on such slot machine
winnings.

The IRS rules say that a W-2G is issued for slot machine winnings of 1200 or more, *not* reduced by the amount of the wager. It wasn't meant to capture big-bet e-tables, but if Louisiana taxes the roulette game as a slot game instead of a table game, you fell under that rule. On the other hand, if they tax the e-roulette game as a table game, you got hosed and they shouldn't have withheld anything.
https://www.irs.gov/instructions/iw2g/ar02.html

It may not be worth $240 to track down, though. I'd just deduct that as "taxes paid" on your federal returns this year and be done with it. Assuming you itemize, all you did was pay $240 of your 2016 IRS bill early.

Edit: on the other other hand, if the casino is paying state gaming taxes on those e-tables as table games, and *still* collecting bogus state tax withholding on it as a slot game and just keeping it, that's all sorts of illegal...

For one, not to one, on a machine. In my opinion, you ripped yourself off by playing at a machine and not betting chips at a table.