A Big Sigh of Relief for the Poker World

Today’s poker news brings a great sigh of relief for anyone who plays high stake poker especially professional poker players. Recently there was a scare, when the government attempted to pass and implement a 25% (!!!) withholding tax on poker tournament winnings over $5,000. Fortunately, today news broke that the tax is not going to be put into place even though it had been reported by many poker news outlets that it was.

Despite the confusion, The American Gaming Association is pleased with the final decision because overtime it would reduce the number of players who could regularly afford to play in high stakes tournaments. Instead of the 25% tax players will be given earnings/tax statements to declare their winnings. This will be used to file on W-2 forms as miscellaneous income.

The final decision in this situation is a great move for the poker world. Popularity and amounts of players would have severely suffered at the cost of the 25% tax.