Tax question, regarding tracking wins to offset losses

Deleted as duplicate, sorry.

Quote: Mosca

I used Easy Bankroll last year because I was pissed that I had to pay taxes on some machine wins. I have a handle on which can and can't be offset, ie what constitutes a session and what doesn't. My question is, how detailed do my records have to be? Easy Bankroll exports its information as .cls files. I am having a bitch of a time importing those. The best I can do, without transposing the numbers directly to a spreadsheet by hand, is print screenshots, but those don't have dates, coin in/coin out, etc.

How detailed should my records be? I'll do the entering if I have to, but I won't like it.
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I've seen big slot players on YouTube who float from machine to machine with big voucher buy-ins and big voucher cash-outs and very large numbers of hand pays on a single machine before moving onto the next one, but they had to enter a PIN number with their Player's Card in the machine to just get credits added to the machine instead of waiting for cash from an attendant. I think at places like the high limit room in the Cosmo Casino does this happen. I'll be astonished to learn how they do their taxes. Because they use a PIN on each hand pay, they must have some alternate form of bookkeeping with the casino going on. They can rack up several dozen hand pays in an afternoon, and they do this 100+ days a year. It must be mindboggling to keep track of your wins and losses on each machine each day, and for sure these players were not keeping track themselves while on camera. All these hand pays are tracked down to the single machine level, so each different buy-in with a voucher was a new session. Maybe they've morphed into starting with a $10,000 buy-in voucher, then 20 machines and 4 hours later, they notate what the final voucher is before they go to the cage and cash-out for cash or casino checks, and count that as one session. What will the IRS say about that, hmmm? It's all just one long voucher session?

As for converting .cls files into something useable, I have no idea what that is.

I don't know jack about CLS files, but this article suggests programs to open that type of file:

https://fileinfo.com/extension/cls#:~:text=File%20written%20in%20LaTeX%2C%20a,and%20other%20types%20of%20documents.

Maybe one of those programs will allow export or copy-and-paste.

I use HRBlock for taxes and I am annoyed that they prevent the user from copy-and-pasting any of the data. I have used OCR to grab data from screen shots.

Quote: ChumpChange

I've seen big slot players on YouTube who float from machine to machine with big voucher buy-ins and big voucher cash-outs and very large numbers of hand pays on a single machine before moving onto the next one, but they had to enter a PIN number with their Player's Card in the machine to just get credits added to the machine instead of waiting for cash from an attendant. I think at places like the high limit room in the Cosmo Casino does this happen. I'll be astonished to learn how they do their taxes. Because they use a PIN on each hand pay, they must have some alternate form of bookkeeping with the casino going on. They can rack up several dozen hand pays in an afternoon, and they do this 100+ days a year. It must be mindboggling to keep track of your wins and losses on each machine each day, and for sure these players were not keeping track themselves while on camera. All these hand pays are tracked down to the single machine level, so each different buy-in with a voucher was a new session. Maybe they've morphed into starting with a $10,000 buy-in voucher, then 20 machines and 4 hours later, they notate what the final voucher is before they go to the cage and cash-out for cash or casino checks, and count that as one session. What will the IRS say about that, hmmm? It's all just one long voucher session?

I think it’s pretty well settled law that a session begins when you enter the doors of a casino and ends when you leave or take a meal or sleep break. See Shollenberger vs Commissioner, https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2009/dec/20092454.html

Quote: ChumpChange

Quote: Mosca

I used Easy Bankroll last year because I was pissed that I had to pay taxes on some machine wins. I have a handle on which can and can't be offset, ie what constitutes a session and what doesn't. My question is, how detailed do my records have to be? Easy Bankroll exports its information as .cls files. I am having a bitch of a time importing those. The best I can do, without transposing the numbers directly to a spreadsheet by hand, is print screenshots, but those don't have dates, coin in/coin out, etc.

How detailed should my records be? I'll do the entering if I have to, but I won't like it.
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I've seen big slot players on YouTube who float from machine to machine with big voucher buy-ins and big voucher cash-outs and very large numbers of hand pays on a single machine before moving onto the next one, but they had to enter a PIN number with their Player's Card in the machine to just get credits added to the machine instead of waiting for cash from an attendant. I think at places like the high limit room in the Cosmo Casino does this happen. I'll be astonished to learn how they do their taxes. Because they use a PIN on each hand pay, they must have some alternate form of bookkeeping with the casino going on. They can rack up several dozen hand pays in an afternoon, and they do this 100+ days a year. It must be mindboggling to keep track of your wins and losses on each machine each day, and for sure these players were not keeping track themselves while on camera. All these hand pays are tracked down to the single machine level, so each different buy-in with a voucher was a new session. Maybe they've morphed into starting with a $10,000 buy-in voucher, then 20 machines and 4 hours later, they notate what the final voucher is before they go to the cage and cash-out for cash or casino checks, and count that as one session. What will the IRS say about that, hmmm? It's all just one long voucher session?

As for converting .cls files into something useable, I have no idea what that is.
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When they put their pin in they are agreeing to a W2G and instead of waiting for an attendant the credits are just loaded onto the machine. I believe some casinos will issue a consolidated W2G for all of the wins on the day while other casinos will issue individual W2G's for each jackpot.

I do it myself where available so I can tell you how it works.

Once you are finished you can notify the cage or slot attendant you are finished for the day. If you forget and leave they will just note the activity ended at XXX time but the session is for the entire day.

You are handed a consolidated document adding up all the W2G. I don't have it in front of me but they give the days totals and count as one huge W2G. I have one which says I won $58,000 on the front but I know it was a bunch of small ones lumped together.

The consolidated document has XXX spaces for listing the individual jackpots. One per line. One trip I won so many the lines ran out. They have to switch paperwork and it's like getting two large separate W2G for the day.

It does make life easier for the accountant. He just lists the consolidated W2G to the IRS. Instead of fifty off jackpots to deal with it's just one or two for that day

Any way, you get that consolidated document when you leave. Takes about fifteen minutes for them to compile. But If you leave and forget to let them know they just add up at days end and send the consolidated document to you in the snail mail.

Quote: darkoz

I do it myself where available so I can tell you how it works.

Once you are finished you can notify the cage or slot attendant you are finished for the day. If you forget and leave they will just note the activity ended at XXX time but the session is for the entire day.

You are handed a consolidated document adding up all the W2G. I don't have it in front of me but they give the days totals and count as one huge W2G. I have one which says I won $58,000 on the front but I know it was a bunch of small ones lumped together.

The consolidated document has XXX spaces for listing the individual jackpots. One per line. One trip I won so many the lines ran out. They have to switch paperwork and it's like getting two large separate W2G for the day.

It does make life easier for the accountant. He just lists the consolidated W2G to the IRS. Instead of fifty off jackpots to deal with it's just one or two for that day

Any way, you get that consolidated document when you leave. Takes about fifteen minutes for them to compile. But If you leave and forget to let them know they just add up at days end and send the consolidated document to you in the snail mail.
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I sometimes ask for a long form when I am expecting a large number of jackpots in a session. I have used up all the lines and had to start a second long form. As darkoz says, if you forget to close the form out, then the summary W-2G will be sent by mail.

Many online casinos are sending one W-2G per gaming day with automatic aggregation over all jackpots hit that day. Several are sending one for the entire year with aggregate amounts for each gaming day listed in an appendix.