Reading List: Sports Bettors Buzzing About Stunning Tax Development
Will Capping Losses at 90% of Winnings Really Unleash an Extinction Event?
If you’re an active (or even casual) participant in sports betting social media, you’ve already been hearing about this for more than a day. If not, I put together a reading list that will help get you up to speed.
Many of you have already read the articles listed below, or seen the video clips. I’ve gathered as many as I could. If you’re a writer and you’re article is NOT listed below, please feel free to mention it and link to it down in the comments section below. Or, if you’re a social media type who does videos, feel free to provide a link to your video in that section. Would be helpful for anyone interested to have one page with access to important information.
*From Jeff Edelstein/InGame: The “Big Beautiful Bill” is About to Destroy US Gambling
*Captain Jack of “Unabated” referenced an “extinction event” when linking to that Edelstein article above. That certainly is a possible end game if Congress allows the current amendment to stick. Captain Jack also posted this video on X (formerly twitter).
*Also a video, Gill Alexander and Kelly Bydlon of VSiN had this discussion.
Was great to see something on VSiN about the issue. Not sure if other shows are digging deep. Awkward, because Derek Stevens was prominently showcased walking Circa’s casino floor with President Trump in the not too distant past. Many outside observers are seeing the current furor as a variation of a fabled scorpion sting. Several Casino owners/personnel are in a tough spot. They were either prominently or subtly MAGA over the past several years. They know the ramifications of same-team criticism. But, they also don’t want to be wiped out by an extinction event! A gambling industry crash wouldn’t be big or beautiful.
*Here’s the informative video that Gill and others referenced from poker player Phil Galfond.
*And, a helpful article from Right Angle Sports here on Substack: A Hidden Tax in Congress Could Hurt Sports Bettors.
*Recently posted by Bloomberg: Gamblers Raise Alarm Over 1.1 Billion Tax Hike in Trump’s Bill.
I haven’t prepared any takes at the moment (beyond those you can infer). There were very good takes in the articles/videos above! I’m on the other side of the world, temporarily assisting in-laws in a country where all forms of gambling are illegal. I’m happy to learn from, and link to expert takes on this very important issue. If needed, I’ll put together additional reading/video lists down the road as this story develops. This is a mess that might be cleaned up quickly…and then the world will pretend that it never happened. Or, it might be early days in a debacle. I’ll definitely have deeper takes if it’s a debacle.
Off topic…but one other article I wanted to mention. Substack author Ariel Calista recently fleshed out the “it takes a thousand picks to know if somebody’s a good handicapper” theme we’ve discussed often in this writing project. Dug deeper than I usually do. Helpful depth! Worth reading and thinking about if you’re relatively new to sports handicapping and sports betting (particularly if we’re NOT facing an extinction event as visualized in the past 24 hours!). Enjoyed seeing another author take a ball we’ve been tossing around on these pages and run with it.
From Ariel Calista’s The Daily Report: The 1,000-Play Gauntlet: Why Real Sports Handicapping is Harder Than It Looks
That’s it for this report. I’ll put together notes for Thursday’s resumption of the WNBA season that will be emailed to subscribers around breakfast time. Thanks for reading. See you again soon.
Great column like always