Will President Donald Trump get his way with the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ that will set the gambling deduction cap at 90%? That’s a question only time will tell.
But as of Thursday, Senate Republicans gave an abrupt no to the reinstatement of gambling losses to 100%, something that seemed to be making headway from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s (D-Nev.) Senate Bill 2330 and that of the Fair Accounting for Income Realized from Betting Earnings Taxation (FAIR BET) Act that Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) introduced on Monday.
Vegas Caught in the Crossfire
There are concerns that the bill as is could seriously wreck Nevada’s economy. And there are questions as to how much impact that would make: The provision is expected to pull in over $1.1 billion in tax revenue over the next eight years, but the Congressional Budget Office has reported that the bill as a whole will increase the deficit by almost $3.3 trillion over the next decade.
For Nevada lawmakers like Cortez, this isn’t just about tweaking the tax code; it’s about protecting what keeps their state running. She warned that huge events like the World Series of Poker might pack up and leave the country or, worse, get pushed underground.
That means fewer tourists, fewer big spenders, and a lot less of the Vegas magic people fly in for. Basically, the bill could end up punishing the very people it’s trying to cash in on.
“The Senate got us into this mess,” Titus said. “Now it’s time for both chambers to unite behind my bipartisan Fair Bet Act to ensure that average and high-stakes gamblers do not pay taxes on money they never won.”
Tax Tweak Blindsides Senate
The bill Trump signed last week is a beast of a legislative package about 1,100 pages long with all sorts of changes to federal programs and the tax code. Basically, even some lawmakers are still trying to figure out everything that’s in it.
Now, here’s where things get messy. Sen. Cortez and others are raising the alarm that some Republicans didn’t even realize a certain policy was buried in the fine print.
It got tossed in last minute to meet a technical Senate rule that says everything in a bill has to somehow affect the budget. In other words, it was filler to make the numbers work.
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said: “When you rush a process like this and cram in policies you haven’t thought through, you risk serious consequences. … Now I see Republican senators walking all over the Capitol saying they didn’t even know anything about this policy.”
Rather than rejecting Cortez outright, Republican Sen. Todd Young used a procedural objection to bring his own priorities into the conversation.
He blocked Cortez’s immediate fix but said he’s actually in favor of her idea to restore the 100% tax deduction. He simply wants religious institutions to also be exempted from the endowment tax that was removed earlier in the bill.
So, what now? Gamblers and states like Nevada are basically in limbo. Everyone’s watching to see if Cortez’s new bill introduced on Wednesday gains traction. And over in the House, Titus is also pushing her FAIR BET Act, which could offer another path forward.
For now, it’s a waiting game.
About the Author
