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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NY man's debt explodes to $100K in less than a year due to gambling — what Dave Ramsey told him to do ASAP
When Jelani from New York called into The Ramsey Show about his financial problems, he didn't sugarcoat his situation. "I owe over $100,000. I'm kind of lost right now,' he told finance personality Dave Ramsey in a clip posted May 28. 'I don't know if I should file [for] bankruptcy. I just need some advice," he told celebrity finance personality Dave Ramsey. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how I'm 49 years old and have nothing saved for retirement — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 6 of the easiest ways you can catch up (and fast) Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10) Jelani shared he owed around $80,000 in credit card debt, $8,500 in student loans and $11,500 on a car loan. His debt accumulated rapidly since Thanksgiving, when he only owed $30,000. A truck driver earning between $110,000 and $140,000 per year, Jelani revealed his debt stemmed mostly from gambling via an online dice game. Ramsey and co-host Jade Warshaw warned Jelani about the mental and financial toll of gambling and the mental traps it creates. "Typically, when you have something that's been such a big part of your life and your habits, just removing it is not enough — you have to replace it with something else," Warshaw said. Jelani admitted he quit gambling cold turkey and hadn't yet sought help through therapy or Gamblers Anonymous, prompting Ramsey to urge him to get support from someone who understands the sobriety process. As for a financial recovery plan, Ramsey laid out a no-frills approach: Create a 'scorched-earth, no life' recovery budget where all spending halts except for necessities and tackling debt. 'Eat peanut butter and jelly. Eat beans and rice. That's it,' Ramsey advised. List debts from smallest to largest and use the snowball method to pay them down aggressively. Pick up extra shifts at work and aim to increase income as much as possible. Ramsey emphasized the urgency of his plan: 'You need to do this in a year to 18 months because that indicates the intensity by which you're running straight into the problem and from the thing that caused the problem — the gambling.' Read more: Want an extra $1,300,000 when you retire? Dave Ramsey says — and that 'anyone' can do it Online gambling has grown in America. The American Gaming Association reports online casino revenue increased 28.7% in 2024 from a year earlier in the seven states with full-scale legal iGaming. That figure represents $8.41 billion in growth. Sports betting also went up nationwide in 2024, with revenue increasing 25.4% up to a record revenue of $13.71 billion. Sports betting's rise in recent years may largely be attributed to increased accessibility as more states have legalized the practice. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), an estimated 2.5 million adults in the U.S. meet the criteria for a severe gambling problem in any given year. The organization also notes around 85% of adults have gambled at least once in their lives, while 60% have gambled within the past year, and that some form of gambling is legal across 48 states and the District of Columbia. The NCPG outlines several key warning signs of gambling addiction, which include: Increasing thoughts about, or time and money spent on, gambling Feeling out of control, or continuing to gamble despite negative consequences Chasing losses, or continuing to gamble in an attempt to win back money Feeling restless or irritable when not gambling Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — here are the alternative assets they're banking on instead How much cash do you plan to keep on hand after you retire? Here are 3 of the biggest reasons you'll need a substantial stash of savings in retirement Robert Kiyosaki warns of a 'Greater Depression' coming to the US — with millions of Americans going poor. But he says these 2 'easy-money' assets will bring in 'great wealth'. How to get in now Here are 5 'must have' items that Americans (almost) always overpay for — and very quickly regret. How many are hurting you? Like what you read? Join 200,000+ readers and get the best of Moneywise straight to your inbox every week. This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How sports betting taxes work and what you might owe
Sports betting only became legal in the United States in 2018 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal ban and ruled that states could individually determine what forms of gambling were legal within their boundaries. This opened the floodgates for various state legislatures to decide whether to allow sports betting. Currently, 40 states and the District of Columbia authorize the practice, and 34 permit online sports betting, according to the American Gaming Association. This has tax implications for millions of gamblers — who are also taxpayers. There is no ambiguity here, according to tax experts. 'Broadly, winnings from sports betting are taxable income,' said April Walker, senior manager for Tax Practice and Ethics with the American Institute of CPAs. Sports betting winnings are taxed under the Internal Revenue Service's designation for gambling income and losses. If your winnings total $600 or more and are at least 300 times the amount wagered, then a payer, such as a casino, is required to issue you a Form W-2G. While supplying the form is the responsibility of the payer, Walker noted, you are still liable for reporting and ensuring taxes are paid on those sports betting winnings, whether or not you receive the form. If you're dealing with a mobile sports gambling provider, like DraftKings or FanDuel, the reporting standards are a little different, according to New England-based accounting firm Baker Newman Noyes. If you reach net earnings above $600 or 300 times your original wager, you can also receive a Form 1099-MISC from an online sports wagering organization that will report your net earnings from the previous tax year. Net earnings would be calculated as your cash winnings minus any cash entry fees and adding any cash bonuses received from the platform. Individual tax filers must report total gambling income as 'Other income: gambling' on line 8b of Schedule 1, 1040. The only exception is if you are filing as a professional gambler, meaning someone 'engaged in sports betting primarily for profit rather than only as a hobby,' per the Journal of Financial Planning. In this case, the filer would use Form 1040, Schedule C to report profit or loss from a business, and they would note winnings as revenue and be able to deduct their losses directly. Self-employed filers — in this case, professional gamblers — must pay self-employment tax, which is 15.3 percent, half of which is subject to deduction, for Social Security and Medicare. This embedded content is not available in your region. To answer the tax rate question, we must work backward. Taxpayers whose winnings exceed $5,000 and 300 times the amount wagered will automatically have 24% of their total payout withheld by the payer, according to Walker. This rate could be higher in states that have additional income tax, in which case the 24% federal rate would be withheld on top of the state's personal income tax rate. Still, when it comes time to file your income taxes, this withholding doesn't ensure you've paid the required amount of tax. Rates range from 10% to 37%, depending on your total income, so based on what tax bracket you end up in at the end of the tax year, you'll either get a refund or have to pay out a higher amount from your winnings. Read more: How tax withholding works Perhaps the most pivotal — and confusing — part of understanding how to report gambling income on your federal income tax return is factoring in your losses. The correct method, according to Walker, comes down to what the IRS refers to as 'sessions.' This philosophy comes from a 2015 IRS notice on slot machine play, indicating that total wins and losses need to be calculated by the day they were made. Each day counts as an individual session, so rather than net your total losses against your total winnings, you will need to calculate the end amount of each session, or day, and determine which days were a loss and which days ended with winnings. Still, the only way that losses can be offset against gambling winnings is if you itemize your deductions rather than take the standard deduction, which is $15,000 for single tax filers on 2025 taxes. Using the session method, you could add your total losses on Schedule A, line 16 as gambling losses. Whether you can itemize your deductions to offset your winnings when it comes to state income tax depends on which state you're filing in. Nine states, including North Carolina, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, do not allow itemized deductions for gambling losses, per an article in the Journal of Financial Planning. Even professional gamblers can only offset their total winnings with their losses and get to zero. There is no tax refund for losses that exceed the total amount of winnings, Walker said. To minimize sports betting taxes, the key is having a demonstrable record of all of your wagers, where and when they occurred, proof that they occurred (like receipts and tickets), and evidence of your total amount of winnings and losses. This will be particularly useful if you find yourself audited by a tax authority. 'Gambling has been around for quite a while, and so the rules on that have not changed,' Walker said. 'The difference is that there might be more people who are doing it on a regular, daily basis, and I would encourage them to understand how important it is to do their bookkeeping so they are not having to scramble after the fact and if they are able to itemize, and take advantage of all of their losses.'
New York Post
25-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Online gambling is engineered addiction — here's how to rein it in
'They fatten upon wretchedness, and have the effrontery to demand that the laws of the State shall be adapted to their purposes.' So said Charles Evans Hughes, Republican governor of New York, about Empire State gambling operators in 1908. More than a century later, Hughes' words ring true as the United States faces an explosion of legal online gambling. 4 Sports betting is now legal in 39 states, and online casinos are permitted in seven. Pixel-Shot – Sports betting, decriminalized by the Supreme Court in 2018, has spread to 39 states. Online casinos, which include slots, blackjack, and more, are permitted in seven of those. Americans now gamble roughly $1 billion a day on state-sanctioned apps like DraftKings and FanDuel — far more if one includes the lottery and meme-stock or crypto speculation. Many have championed this newfound embrace of financial thrill-seeking. Bill Miller of the American Gaming Association claims gambling is innocuous, 'a voluntary entertainment option, comparable to attending a concert, dining out, or going to the movies.' But gambling is not like attending a concert or going to the movies. It is, like drugs or alcohol, an addictive product that many can enjoy safely — but some cannot. The dangers of addiction multiply when we can bet on our phones at all hours of the day, and when gambling companies use sophisticated algorithms and troves of personal data to extract the maximum amount of money from customers. 4 As many as one in five male college students are using student-loan money to fund gambling, recent surveys have found. AA+W – That's because the gambling industry, like the alcohol industry, is reliant on problem users. For at least one major US operator, VIP customers represented just 0.5% of the user base while generating more than 70% of the company's revenue. In the UK, where online gambling has been legal for longer and better data exist, 5% of users account for 86% of industry profits, and gamblers from the poorest areas are overrepresented among the biggest losers. Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Problems are concentrated among young men: As many as one in five male college students are using student-loan money to fund gambling, recent surveys have found. Proponents of expanded online gambling greatly exaggerate the benefits. Tax revenue is meager and quickly diminishes over time. 4 Americans now gamble roughly $1 billion a day on state-sanctioned apps like DraftKings and FanDuel. Getty Images for FanDuel The black market, which advocates said would dry up as users move to legal sites, is thriving because more people than ever are gambling — and their play spills over into unregulated spaces. In response, some commentators have suggested a blanket ban on online gambling. The logic is simple: Gambling, particularly on our phones, is bad for lots of people and for society writ large. But prohibition is not a cure-all. While a ban would surely reduce the number of bettors and de-normalize the activity, many would simply continue their play with unregulated operators — especially now that the population of gamblers has expanded from years of legalization. Instead, like other vices, online gambling should be regulated by focusing on the two aspects that justify government intervention: addiction and predation. Some gambling products, just like some drugs, are beyond the pale and ought to be banned completely. Online slots, for example, are engineered to ensnare users, and carry far greater risks of addiction than online sports betting. In Pennsylvania, the largest state with legal online casinos, residents lost $27 million betting on sports in March, while losing $238 million to online casinos — 75% of which came from slots. For sports betting, which carries less risk of addiction, regulators should set clear rules about identifying and responding to problem gamblers, and impose hefty fines on operators for noncompliance. Any gambler who deposits money a dozen times in a single day, drastically increases their stakes after losing, or frequently cancels withdrawals should be automatically flagged and their betting restricted. 4 Getty Images Regulations can be modeled after dram-shop laws, which hold alcohol vendors accountable for over-serving obviously intoxicated patrons. Regulators should also restrict the amount and nature of gambling advertisements. You should be able to watch sporting events without gambling being shoved in your face. Moreover, like health warnings on cigarette cartons, ads should come with a disclosure that the odds are not in your favor. Gambling is now regulated at the state level, but just as Congress stepped in to regulate tobacco and alcohol, it should now do the same for online gambling. In many ways, the fight to regulate today's online gambling operators echoes Hughes' fight against racetracks in the early 1900s. But unlike a century ago, gambling has become frictionless and ubiquitous. Gamblers can gamble day and night, on the couch and in the shower, on NBA-themed slots and Russian table tennis. Their bookies, meanwhile, know everything about them and can provide personalized inducements to keep them gambling. The question facing policymakers isn't whether gambling should exist, but how to prevent addiction and predation while permitting recreational use. Banning online casinos and more effectively regulating sports betting would strike the balance between personal liberty and necessary protection. After all, Americans should be free to gamble — but not with loaded dice. Isaac Rose-Berman is a professional sports bettor and fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men focused on gambling research and policy. Adapted from City Journal.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Chicago dad's $389,000 March Madness win vanishes when BetMGM cancels his payout over 'obvious error'
Chicago-area resident Mark Aiello hit the jackpot with a $389,000 March Madness win on BetMGM, only to have his dreams dashed when the payout vanished. Aiello, a military vet and dad from Roselle, Illinois, placed $2,000 in bets that turned into a life-changing amount of almost $400,000. But when he checked the app after the game, Aiello was devastated to see his bets were gone. I'm 49 years old and have nothing saved for retirement — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 5 of the easiest ways you can catch up (and fast) Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10) Want an extra $1,300,000 when you retire? Dave Ramsey says this 7-step plan 'works every single time' to kill debt, get rich in America — and that 'anyone' can do it "I looked at my BetMGM app, and I noticed that it looked weird," Aiello told CBS News Chicago, "like all of the bets were grayed out." Aiello's huge win turned into an even bigger headache for the suburban dad, and now he's warning others to be careful when it comes to sports betting apps. The American Gaming Association has predicted a jaw-dropping $3.1 billion in bets this year on men's and women's college basketball, so it's safe to say there was a lot of money on the line. In Aiello's case, he thought he was about to score big during a March 2 Chicago Bulls vs. Indiana Pacers game. He placed four $500 bets on specific player rebounds and assists, hoping that a mix of six outcomes would land in his favor. "350 to 1 is definitely like hard odds to hit, so it's unlikely," Aiello said. "Once the game was over, I was just, my heart was racing. I was incredibly excited." But Aiello's bets were canceled right before tipoff as if he had never gambled at all, leaving him with no winnings. "It's discouraging," he said. "It's confusing and it makes you angry." Aiello's situation isn't an isolated one. Kris Benton from Virginia experienced something eerily similar in 2023. Benton had placed a massive $214,000 bet through BetMGM, only to see his payout voided hours later. "They just kept, you know, spamming me with their terms and conditions about the 'obvious errors' clause," Benton told CBS News. In both cases, BetMGM sent the same message: 'These wagers were voided due to an obvious error.' The reason? 'Obvious error of incorrect or inflated odds per the house rules.' But Aiello was baffled, since he says at least one of his bets had been reviewed by a BetMGM trader before being approved. "They took a look and said, yes, this is good to go, and then they didn't cancel them for seven hours," Aiello said. "So I'm wondering where the obvious error was." Both Aiello and Benton say they never got a clear answer on what the correct odds should have been. Benton went public with his story, speaking to Washington, D.C. CBS affiliate WUSA-TV, and just weeks later, a BetMGM lawyer reached out to him with an unexpected offer: the company would pay out his bets in full. BetMGM didn't provide a clear response when CBS News Chicago reached out, but they did confirm they submitted a report to regulators about Aiello's complaint. So, how do you ensure you're not caught in the same unfortunate situation as Aiello? Read more: The US stock market's 'fear gauge' has exploded — but this 1 'shockproof' asset is up 14% and helping American retirees stay calm. Here's how to own it ASAP Since sports betting and online gambling are regulated state-by-state, it's critical that you navigate the rules and pick the right platform to protect your bets. Here are some best practices to follow: Licensed sports betting apps are regulated by state authorities and must adhere to strict rules around fairness, transparency and accountability. States like New Jersey, with the Division of Gaming Enforcement, and Pennsylvania's Gaming Control Board, have their own agencies that oversee gambling to make sure the platforms are legitimate. This includes screenshots of your bets, transaction logs and confirmation emails for deposits or withdrawals. Most reputable platforms let you access your transaction history anytime. If things go sideways, this history is crucial for sorting things out. And, don't forget to document any conversations with customer support. Set up two-factor authentication (2FA) on your account, use strong passwords and consider a password manager to keep your information secure. Stick to trusted payment methods like PayPal, bank transfers or credit cards, which typically offer fraud protection. Sports betting is legal in almost 40 states, but the rules can vary. States like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan have embraced it, but be sure to check the regulations in your state, such as age limits or tax implications, before you bet. Many betting platforms offer self-exclusion or deposit limit features. If you feel like you're losing control, these can help you manage your activity. For anyone struggling, there are resources like the National Council on Problem Gambling to lend a hand. The excitement of a big win can quickly turn into frustration, and in some cases, like for Aiello, disappointment. So, it's best to be careful where you put your money. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — here are the alternative assets they're banking on instead Here are 5 'must have' items that Americans (almost) always overpay for — and very quickly regret. How many are hurting you? This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
CNN
02-04-2025
- Sport
- CNN
Expert highlights the dangers of Americans' $3.1 billion gamble on March Madness
Americans are expected to wager $3.1 billion on March Madness this year, according to the American Gaming Association. Jonathan Cohen, author of "Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling," explains why the annual basketball tournament outdoes even the Super Bowl's infamous gambling reputation.
