I suspect you might have more of your Social Security taxed if your W2Gs
increase your Adjusted Gross Income. In fact, if your AGI goes up, you can pay
a lot more in taxes, even if you have more losses than wins, because AGI goes
up with the Gambling Winnings, and Gambling Losses don't reduce the income
until Schedule B cuts in.
Another unexpected and bad increase in costs, is that AGI is now used to
determine the cost of Medicare. We just got our statement from Social Security
Department (and this may be why someone told you there SS was cut) - my
husband's Medicare cost goes up an extra $145 or so a month next year, because our
AGI was way up with the number of W2Gs. Unfortunately we lost more than we
won by quite a bit too,
As a result of the large numbers of W2Gs from playiing $1 and $5 machines,
we end up having our deductions reduced, so we pay several thousand more in
taxes, plus now pay a couple thousand more a year for Medicare.
The extra Medicare cost only affects those over 65.
These unexpected costs can greatly increase the cost of gambling.
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