Gambling and Government: The Big Beautiful Bill

Recent tax changes in the "big beautiful bill" affect how gambling winnings are taxed, but this misses the larger issue of gambling becoming a serious public health crisis in America. The gambling industry continues to profit while individuals chase the dream of easy money, often with devastating consequences for their financial stability and mental health.

• Gambling winnings can now be taxed at 100% while losses can only be deducted at 90%
• Professional gamblers considering relocation due to unfavorable tax laws
• Gamblers rarely consider tax implications when placing bets
• All gamblers believe the "big win" is just around the corner
• Gambling companies invest heavily in advertising to attract more players
• The house always maintains mathematical advantage over players
• Gambling products designed to increase betting frequency for higher profits
• Most compulsive gamblers have experienced a "big win" that reinforces their behavior
• The "dream world" of gambling creates unrealistic expectations of wealth without work
• Gambling addiction leads to debt, credit problems, foreclosure, and educational disruptions
• Gambling is becoming a significant public health and mental health issue
• State governments seek gambling revenue without acknowledging the social costs

Join our Facebook group "Recovery Freedom Circle" to learn about recovery, discuss the steps, and get support for achieving your goals. We focus on building character traits and spiritual principles to address underlying issues like self-esteem, insecurity, depression, and anxiety.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Recovery Principles
• 1:40 The Big Beautiful Bill Explained
• 4:30 How Gambling Companies Really Operate
• 7:49 The Gambler's Delusion
• 9:43 Tackling the Public Health Issue
• 10:26 Final Thoughts on Peace and Recovery

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Let's talk about the big beautiful bill and also let's talk about government in respect to gambling. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in Recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day, to work hard, work hard in recovery, work hard in your relationships, work hard in your job, your business, in school. Just work and to love unconditionally. Just put more love out there and watch all that love and more love return. Recovery is beautiful. Your EQ is your IQ and you cannot outthink an emotional issue. Now we encourage people to join the Facebook group Recovery Freedom Circle, where we talk about the steps, where we talk about recovery, on how to help people, how to people to live their best life so they start achieving goals and dreams and doing the things that they were set out to do. And also, if you have a question or a concern or a struggle, put that down, because we are here also to elevate and to let the community help each person achieve what they need to achieve. So the link is down below Just join the Facebook group Recovery Freedom Circle. Now let's jump into this week's episode.

Speaker 1: 1:40

So what's a big thing that's been going on this week? The big beautiful bill that was signed by President Trump where, within the gambling context in this bill, has people with ruffled feathers talking about how you can be taxed at 100% of your gambling winnings. You can be taxed at 100% of your gambling winnings, but now you cannot deduct 100% of your gambling losses. You can only deduct 90% of your losses. And everybody people are trying to calculate that that may affect the way people gamble, that may affect the gambling industry, the gambling industry. That will change certain ways that people do things. Even the so-called professional poker players are looking about how they don't want to be based in the US. They want to be based in some other country that has much more favorable tax laws. Well, this is what I know about any gambler. Nobody gambles, whether you're talking about poker, sports betting options, crypto horses. No one that I know gambles. Thinking about tax implications, saying if I gamble X amount of dollars, this may affect my overall tax bill.

Speaker 1: 3:12

They don't care, because every gambler whether you're a one-time gambler or you're a compulsive gambler or you're a problem gambler they always, always believe the big win is around the corner, that somehow that they're going to get lucky and they're going to not with the lottery, but they're going to hit maybe a parlay or they're going to hit some magic river card or something is going to happen and the price is going to move in the correct direction. If you're doing options and it happens rarely Do you know who it favors? It'll always favor the house. So people should always be wondering is is why do all these gambling companies keep investing more and more money in advertising, hiring all types of influencers, not really caring about the tax laws? Yeah, they want to say that they're out there looking out for the everyday average player. That's BS. Because they, the gambling industry, keeps constructing gambling products that is geared towards one thing to speed up how many bets can be made in an hour, which translates into higher revenue and profit for casinos, sports books, any other type of house for the gambling industry, because they know gambling is a mathematical equation.

Speaker 1: 5:04

The problem is is gamblers are always dreaming that it number one in the short term, that they're going to be lucky and maybe they've had some big win. I've talked to almost any. Every compulsive gamer I've ever talked to has had a big win. It's all relative to what big means to you, but there's always a weekend where you're just on fire and then what happens? Is the brain chemistry in your brain actually believes that this is a repeatable event over and over again, that you can be a lazy SOB and you're going to get all this free money. And it talks about in 12-step rooms in gamblers literature, where it talks about this dream world.

Speaker 1: 6:02

And that is the problem, when people start dreaming that they're going to have enough money for penthouses, world tours, being philanthropic, taking care of their family, living this good life and all they have to do is play some cards, roll some dice, pick some teams. Of course now is pick certain players on prop betting Could have been horses, could be about stocks, or it could be about crypto, or you're doing any type of crypto coin and you're getting into all these really speculative wagers. It has nothing to do. You have zero control. You think you're just circling and it's a 50-50 chance. It is not. That is why the casinos in Vegas have always gotten richer over these last 40 years that I've been watching hotels go up in Vegas. I went to my first Vegas casino in the early 90s, so we're talking about a good 35 years and I know they've kind of changed.

Speaker 1: 7:16

And the same reason why every now, these Fortune 500 companies are investing millions and millions of dollars because they know they're going to make billions and billions of dollars, and yet people are just so happy if they can make $20,000, $30,000, or if they can actually make $100,000, $200,000 from gambling $200,000 from gambling. We all have so many talents. We can make so much more money with our own brain and our own hustle and our own drive. But we get into this lazy, complacent mode thinking that gambling is a solution, and, unfortunately, all gambling does is going to create people creating more debt, lowering their credit score, possibly having foreclosures camp, maybe something big like college tuition, college students getting derailed, having to drop out of school because they have mounting debts, and their debts are probably only where between $10,000 and $40,000. But when you're 20 years old, that may feel like $500,000. And so what I encourage people to do with this big, beautiful bill is stop worrying about it.

Speaker 1: 8:48

We need to be talking about how gambling is now becoming a public health issue.

Speaker 1: 8:54

It's affecting too much of our mental health and we need to start figuring out how to help people Now.

Speaker 1: 9:03

My Recovery Freedom Circle I talk about character traits, I talk about spiritual principles can deal with their low self-esteem, with their insecurities, with their depression, their anxiety, their financial and economic insecurity, so they can then live their best life because they are putting in the work. So with that, whatever happens with government because nowadays most state governments just want gambling money, because they think it's free revenue and not realizing that they are helping to create this public health, mental health crisis, this gambling epidemic that is causing havoc and wreckage in our country and we can learn how to have much more peace and serenity, how to say life is wonderful, how to create what we need to do. So with that, focus on your own mental health, focus on what you need to do for yourself and for your family. Work hard. Like I say, nothing can replace working hard, nothing can replace enjoying life, finding the pleasures in life, living in gratitude and just loving people unconditionally. So with that we're going to conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery podcast.