Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash There are nine states with no personal income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. I mention this today because the lone winner of last night’s Mega Millions $361 million ($157.3 million one-time cash option) jackpot bought the slip in Texas. If that person lives here, he/she/they are in luck, since the millions only have to be shared with the Internal Revenue Service. California, Washington special situations: The same goes for the other no-income-tax states, as well as California. Yep, although California is infamous for many and varied... Read more →
Gambling
Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, usually hosts rugby matches. On Saturday, Aug. 26, it will once again be configured to meet U.S. college football dimensions for a Navy-Notre Dame game. Here's how Aviva looked in 2012 when the two teams played there. (Photo by Papachinzo via Wikipedia CC) The 2023 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college football season kicks off this Saturday. I'll be yelling (yes, literally screaming at my TV in joy and, no doubt, frustration) for the Naval Academy's midshipmen as they take on Notre Dame in Ireland. Yep, the country of Ireland. Talk about an... Read more →
America's elite billionaires club last week welcomed a new member. The person who has the sole winning ticket, purchased at a Publix grocery store in Neptune Beach, Florida, can claim the $1.58 billion Mega Millions jackpot. The Aug. 8 jackpot was the largest Mega Millions jackpot awarded, according to the national lottery. The winner, who has yet to come forward, has the option of taking the nearly $1.6 billion spread out over 30 years. Or the winner can slide into the millionaires' club by getting a single cash payment of $783.3 million. One vs. 30 payouts: Most people opt for... Read more →
Reviewed and updated Sunday, Oct.8, 2023 Since there was no big winner last night, the Powerball lottery jackpot grew to $1.55 billion, a nearly $680 million one-time lump sum payout. For those who aren’t deterred by the very long lottery-winning odds and hold out hope for dual jackpots, Mega Millions is at “just” $20 million ($8.7 cash option) after one of my fellow Texans bought the winning $361 million ($157.3 million one-time cash option) ticket last week. Whenever your numbers come up, in full or part, these tips can help you handle your new sudden millionaire status. Picking lucky numbers... Read more →
FanDuel On July 1, Tennessee will become the first state to tax sports betting handle. That means the Volunteer State's tax take will be based on based on the total amount of money wagered, instead of revenue collected. For a few more days, Tennessee will impose a 20 percent tax on adjusted gross gambling revenue (AGR). Next month, it will tax sports betting handle at 2 percent. The reason is, of course, money. Millions more to collect: A Tennessee General Assembly Fiscal Review Committee financial summary of the bill making the taxing methodology change notes that more than $3.77 billion... Read more →
Photo by Ays Be on Unsplash Congratulations to the Denver Nuggets on winning their first National Basketball Association championship. Congratulations, too, to all the bettors (like Drake) who pocketed some cash when their sports wagers paid off. Now all that's left is declaring those winnings as income on 2023 tax returns next year and paying the tax due on the money. Since sports betting has expanded across much of the United States, the Internal Revenue Service is in a much better position to know about these winnings and collect the associated taxes. U.S. commercial gaming revenue reached a quarterly record... Read more →
In 1896, the first college basketball game was played. Now, 127 years later, the hoopla known as March Madness is big business and big betting. The annual NCAA Division 1 college basketball tournaments, both men's and women's matches, dominate the airwaves, with networks paying millions for the broadcast rights. Fans follow on their in-home televisions, as well as on their mobile devices via the internet. Seeding, schmeeding: The wins aren't just important to the teams, the university cities, or the colleges' alums. Bettors have placed millions on the games, and lots of them have already lost big. Upsets busted brackets... Read more →
Casino sportsbooks like this one in Las Vegas still take plenty of sports bets, but thanks to the Supreme Court's 2018 ruling allowing states to open up sports gambling within their borders, this year's Super Bowl wagering broke betting records. Happy Super Bowl Monday hangover! I'll try to type softly for all y'all skipping work today to recover from either celebrating your Kansas City Chiefs hoisting the Lombardi Trophy again or hunkering down because you drowned your Philadelphia Eagles' fan sorrows a bit too much. Regardless of the National Football League championship result, I hope at least some of your... Read more →
… and yes, there is a tax connection beyond winning wagers being taxable income. Photo by Scott Webb As is usual each Super Bowl Sunday, bets are getting a lot of attention. There are the big-dollar wagers on the game. Two seven-figure bets were placed last week on the Philadelphia Eagles to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in today's Super Bowl LVII championship game. Then there are the prop bets, many of which have nothing to do with National Football League plays on the field. For any of those bets that pay off, the winners will owe taxes to the... Read more →
Image courtesy NFL The 57th Super Bowl is Sunday. Millions will watch the National Football League championship game to root for their Kansas City Chiefs or Philadelphia Eagles. For most, the attention will be because of pure fandom. But millions also will pay attention to the events at State Farm Field in Glendale, Arizona, because they've got money riding on the game. Growth of sports betting: Gambling on sporting events is no longer taboo. After the U.S. Supreme Court's 2018 ruling allowed states to decide whether to legalize sports betting within their borders, most states and Washington, D.C., have done... Read more →
Vegas, baby! Nevada's Sin City is still the place to wager on sporting events. More states, however, are taking sports bets, but World Cup wagers are minimal compared to bets placed globally. The hubby has been planted in front of the upstairs television since the World Cup began. I've been watching the MLB Network, wondering when the GM-less Houston Astros will make a move beyond the José Abreu signing. We'll weather this sports breach in our marriage. He's a big baseball fan, too, and the World Cup rolls around just every four years. And at least he's not a gambler.... Read more →
A single winning ticket for the record $2.04 billion Powerball lottery jackpot was sold in Altadena, California. The good news for the buyer, or buyers if it's a shared ticket, is that California is one of two states that don't tax lottery winnings. The other is Delaware. The bad news is that the U.S. Treasury still gets a big chuck of the huge payout when the winner(s) finally collect. Winnings are ordinary taxable income: Since lottery winnings are considered under the Internal Revenue Code as gambling proceeds, the Internal Revenue Service will get a cut. When winnings are more than... Read more →
Welcome to the first Sunday of the 2022 National Football League season. It's the best day of the week for U.S. professional football fans. Yeah, I know the first game was last Thursday night and the Buffalo Bills sent a message to the defending Super Bowl champs, in L.A., no less, and everyone else. But today is full of America's most popular sport. There are 14 match-ups, starting at noon Central Time. That's where I am, so that's that flyover clock reading that my search (shown below) gave me. Adjust accordingly for your team and time zone. Then the first... Read more →
March Madness, the name of the annual NCAA men's basketball tournament, begins today. The betting on the games began Sunday, as soon as the 68 teams filling the brackets were announced. I'm not a big college sports fan, basketball included, so all I know about this year's tourney is that my alma mater is attending the Big Dance. Texas Tech's impressive roundball team, with its AP Big 12 Coach of the Year Mark Adams, will play its first game scheduled for Friday, March 18, afternoon. I'm rooting for the Tech team. However, I am not betting on the guys. No... Read more →
The winter Olympics are still going on, and I'm particularly thrilled about the "old" man of 40, Nick Baumgartner, finally winning his first medal after tries in four of the global games. And a gold at that! It was the second gold for his mixed snowboard cross teammate Lindsey Jacobellis, who until Baumgartner's win, was the oldest winter games winner at age 36. Congrats, but sorry, Olympics athletes. Here in the United States, we'll be taking a break this weekend. The Super Bowl is Sunday. And you know what that means. Betting on the National Football League championship game. Prop... Read more →
Most of us would love to win the lottery. And most of us know that hitting a jackpot means the U.S. Treasury is a winner, too. Taxes due on gambling winnings are just part of the price of such payoffs. But an Ohio man pushed his luck a bit too far. He's now awaiting sentencing on his attempt to evade taxes on a lottery jackpot. The Hillard, Ohio, man pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court to one count of filing a false tax return with the Internal Revenue Service in connection with his $1 million lottery win 2015.... Read more →
via GIPHY On a visceral financial level, we all hate paying taxes. But what we hate almost as much is that the tax laws often seem overly complicated or just plain goofy. Take estimated taxes. These are four extra payments that the Internal Revenue Service and many states require taxpayers to make to cover the taxes due on earnings that aren't subject to paycheck tax withholding. Straightforward enough, right? Until it comes to payment deadlines. Even though there are, in most cases, four of them and they're called quarterly estimated tax payments, the IRS uses a calendar that's a bit... Read more →
Sports betting has expanded beyond casino sportsbooks like this one in Las Vegas. And this NFL season, the league has made deals with seven sports betting companies. (Photo by Kay Bell) The National Football League's 2021 season kicks off tonight with the Dallas Cowboys visiting the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Are you ready for some sports betting, this time OK'ed by the NFL? The NFL reached deals last month with FOX Bet, BetMGM, PointsBet, and WynnBET to be the league's Approved Sportsbook Operators. This means that, among other things, the four legal betting operations can purchase televised... Read more →
Last November, Louisiana voters in 55 of the state's 64 parishes approved sports betting. Gov. John Bel Edwards signed the necessary enacting bills into law in June. And this month, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board passed emergency sports betting rules, effective Aug. 23, to start the licensing process and finalize permanent rules. The process probably isn't streamlined enough to allow bettors to put down cash on the Thursday, Sept. 9, meeting of my frustratingly underachieving Cowboys and the current Super Bowl Champion Buccaneers, which kicks off the 2021 National Football League (NFL) season. But the hope of sports betting supporters... Read more →
Tonight's Powerball drawing is $304 million*. If your numbers don't come up, or even if they do, you can check out Mega Millions' drawing on Friday, Aug. 27, for a jackpot that by then will be more than the current $288 million**. *UPDATE, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021: No big winner last night. That pushes the Powerball jackpot for Saturday's, Aug. 28, drawing to, right now, $322 million. **UPDATE, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021: Stop me if you're heard this, but no big Mega Millions winner on Aug. 27. That means the Tuesday, Aug. 31, jackpot will be at least $306 million.... Read more →