Another prominent member of the gambling industry has come out against the gambling tax provisions in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Las Vegas casino owner Derek Stevens weighed in on the issue this week.
Stevens owns The D, Golden Gate, and Circa Casino in Downtown Las Vegas. He said the the provision may drive more gamblers to use offshore online casino operators. Thus, it deprives states of tax revenue and puts casino jobs in jeopardy.
Under the new provision, gamblers could only write off 90% of their losses.
Hurting Las Vegas
Stevens said the addition of the gambling language came after legislators rushed through a bill that they didn’t completely understand.
“This affects everyone in Las Vegas, because this, like I said, will impact jobs,” Stevens told KTNV. “This impacts visitation, tourism. It’s an important thing that just needs to be corrected.”
Stevens has a negative outlook on the future of Sin City if nothing is changed. However, he doesn’t think the politicians wrote the provision with the express intent of hurting the industry.
“I don’t think anyone — Democrat or Republican — had any intent on hurting Las Vegas or, for that matter, hurting the gaming industry in any sense. It’s just that the way this developed, it will really hurt Vegas,” said Stevens. “It will really hurt the gaming industry. And that’s why this has to get fixed, because no one wants this to happen.”
Many poker players took to social media over the last two weeks to warn others about the provision and the impact it could have on poker as well as the entire gaming industry.
“There will be less people that can gamble, less money to be won, more people going overseas, more people going (through) illegal routes,” poker pro Doug Polk said in a video. “There are all these negative impacts that could very well cost you more than this 10% you’re trying to gain.”
Stevens Hopeful Of A Fix
Rep. Dina Titus, of Nevada filed the FAIR BET Act (Fair Accounting for Income Realized from Betting Earnings Taxation Act) which would that would nullify the gambling tax provision in the bill and restore the 100% loss deduction. However, that was met with some pushback from Republican Todd Young in the Senate.
For his part, Stevens said he has met with lawmakers about the bill and is hoping to see the loss deduction revived.
“It should be a very simple fix, but I know everything gets a little more complicated sometimes than it ought to be,” he said. “This is good for all our states. This is good for gamblers. It’s good for recreational players as well as professional gamblers.”
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