By poker_boy | 3 Comments
Last updated: Monday, August 15, 2011 | 124 Views Tags: claiming benefits, earnings, ful, much money, playing poker, professional poker player
I just love answering these poker questions. Here’s another:
Question: Hi, A friend of mine is supposedly a professional poker player and also claiming benefits. I say he should be care ful as all earnings and he earns a lot, should be declared, basically i dont think he should claim benefits and earn so much money playing poker. He says it is tax free? This surely cant be right? Can someone solve this please? Thanks.
Answer: In the UK gambling is tax exempt, less than %10 of poker players are "winning players" by this i mean they win consistently over years not a few months, "most" players will tell you how great they are but most lose in the long run, i’m guessing most of this is bravado/ego, but if not & he’s making a small profit then good luck to him, if he’s making 10’s of thousands of $’s though he’s obviously being selfish, if he is a pro poker player (which i doubt) he wont need benefit payments & should sign off,
Now do you ask as you want to grass? that’s for your conscience to sort out, i grew up being told don’t tell tales & have lived by it, but my guess is he is showing off,
Papa 
Comments
3 comments
Mike Smith
August 15, 2011
Gambling winnings in the UK are tax free, what he is doing is morally wrong but not illegal.
August 15, 2011
People do a lot woorse things than this.
August 15, 2011
In the UK winnings from gambling are not treated as earnings and are therefore tax exempt. Part of the reason for this is probably that if winnings were taxed then loses could be counted as ‘deductibles’ for self employed people. Then people could gamble and if they lose claim the loses back against their tax bill - for obvious reasons this would not be a clever policy to have!
Your friend is not doing anything illegal.