Court Allows Slot Player to Deduct Losses

Filed in archive Casinos on May 19, 2006

In a case that defies all other gambling tax laws, full-time slots player, Estelle Busch took her case to a Minnesota court and won.

Minnesota has their own alternative minimum income tax law and the courts ruled that Busch's business was as a slots player - and therefore her losses could be deductible. This is despite the fact that slots aren't a skill game and ultimately the player should always lose.

In a written argument to the high court, Busch insisted that her gambling losses of $189,000 in 2001 were tax-deductible because gambling was her full-time business.

Revenue officials and the Minnesota Tax Court had ruled that playing slot machines can't be a business for which you can write off losses because you can't reasonably expect to make money.

In the opinion written by Justice Paul Anderson, the court acknowledged that "slot machines are programmed for the gambler to lose."

But a person's hopes for profit need not always be reasonable for an endeavor to qualify as a business under the state alternative minimum tax law, Anderson wrote.

Naturally, this only applies to the minimum tax law - so before you give up everything to become a full-time slots player, it doesn't apply to normal federal or state tax laws

Article: Supreme Court rules in favor of slot player who deducted losses