In a recent case a married couple had their gambling losses disallowed due to their shoddy recordkeeping.
They were not able to use their gambling losses to offset winnings, according to the Tax Court.
The couple worked as house poker players at a casino, meaning they gambled there with the objective of attracting other gamblers. Even though they each earned wages, they had to use their own funds for betting on poker games.
They got a W-2G from the casino reporting their winnings, and they obviously had some losses, but they had no documentation for the losses. There were no daily log of wins and losses. As a result, the Court couldn’t reasonably estimate their losses. SO they had none.
Pham, TC Summ. Op. 2016-73