Gambling Winnings & Taxes in US 2021 » Do I have to pay Taxes?

Hello Legaladvice,
 
I frequent this sub, and love you guys - venturing into unknown territory and needing clarification on several UI questions.
 
Back story: I was notified by my employer at the end of May that the company I worked at for 3 1/2 years would be dissolving, and I would be laid off effective June 30th. After spending the month searching for a new job but not landing anything concrete, I filed for Unemployment this past Monday. When filing, I disclosed that my employer agreed to pay me out for my remaining vacation time, but I have yet to actually receive this. I also have not received my final paycheck, covering my last week of work.
It appears my employer may be treating this like I'm still on the payroll, and are waiting to pay me until the next natural pay date, which would be July 14th. However, I was under the impression that employees who are dismissed/laid off/terminated should receive their final paycheck on their last day.
 
Q1: Besides simply having to wait, are there any issues with my employer delaying my final payment?
 
Q2: Could this payment be viewed as earned income for a future week (even though it is technically back pay for time already worked), and disqualify me from receiving benefits for a couple of weeks?
 
Here's where it gets interesting - wanting to take a break from the stress of this past week, I decided to play Bingo at the local Bingo Hall last night. I ended up hitting the Progressive Jackpot - and won $3000! Because I have been lucky enough to win this same Progressive Jackpot once before, I know for a fact that I will receive a W-2G on these winnings next year.
 
Q3: Do I report my Bingo winnings as income when I file for Unemployment next week? I did a bit of digging and read that typically, gambling winnings are classified as "Unearned Income", though I can't find anything concrete that confirms that for Mass. The only option I have through Mass.gov's UI site is to list this money as "Other Income"; nothing else fits.
 
Q4: Will reporting these winnings as income disqualify me from receiving benefits?
 
Q5: Will not reporting these winnings {through Unemployment} come back to bite me in the ass somehow? I'd prefer to avoid that, for the most part.
 
Q6: Will this week still count as my waiting week if report that I received income?
 
Thanks for the time and the replies, I really appreciate it.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Faculty of Psychology
University of Toronto
JCT: John Von Neumann said: Economic questions arise in a
more elementary manner in the Theory of Games. After my
degree in Systems Engineering, I was Teaching Assistant of
Canada's only Mathematics of Gambling Course at Carleton
University for 4 years in the late 1970s and became a
professional gambler for over 42 years! Google for Great
Canadian Gambler and I come up. I was known as "The
Professor" at the Trump Taj Mahal Poker room of "Rounders"
fame in the 1990s. I hope to provide such elementary insight
into Pareto Distributions.
JP: Pareto Distributions https:youtu.be/TcEWRykSgwE
- Creative production in any domain, artistic, food
production, novels, money generated, companies generated,
goals in hockey, paintings, human productivity, follows
Pareto Principle that half the production is done by the
square root of players. With 10 employees, 3 do the half the
work. 10,000 employees, 100 do half the work.
JCT: It would not apply to non-human animals. Take bees.
Presume a bee brings back 1 gram of pollen per day on
average. Under a Pareto Distribution where:
P(e)= Elite Bee Production; P(l)= Lesser Bee Production
So P(e)*sqrt(n) = .5 = P(l)*(n-sqrt(n))
Elite Production is Factor: (sqrt(n)-1) bigger than P(l).
Hive of 4 bees:
2 bees bring in 2g pollen, other 2 bring in 2g: Factor = 1.
Hive of 9 bees:
3 bees bring in 4.5g, other 6 bees bring in 4.5g
Elite brings 4.5g/3=1.5g, Lesser brings 4.5g/6=.75g: F=2
Hive of 16 bees:
Elite brings 8g/4=2g, Lesser bee brings 8g/12=.67g: F=3
Hive of 25 bees:
Elite 12.5g/5=2.5g, Lesser brings 12.5g/20=.625g: F-4
Hive of 100 bees
Elite 50g/10=5g, Lesser bee 50g/90=.55g: F=9
Hive of 10,000 bees:
Elite 5000g/100=50g, Lesser 5000g/9,900=.505g F=99
Hive of 1,000,000 bees:
Elite 500kg/1k=500g, Lesser 500kg/999k=.5005g: F=999.
So in a hive of a million bees, the 999,000 Lesser bees
would bring in half a gram each rather than a whole gram
while an elite bee brings in half a kilo! Only because of
the size of the hive? Doubtful.
Though I accept a Pareto Distribution is observed in the
distribution of human productivity and other areas, I see no
reason for it to occur in production by non-humans.
- Pareto Distributions govern distribution of money. Why 1%
have the overwhelming amount and 1/10 of that 1% has almost
all of that. The richest 100 have as much money as the
bottom 2.5B. Across all creating domains. Something like a
natural law.
JCT: So an Elite human produces 50,000 times what a Lesser
human produces?
JP: Marxism is ignorant of the Pareto principle
https:youtu.be/i0iL0ixoZYo
- Pareto distribution as a function of some fundamental
force we don't understand!
- People compete to produce. Almost everybody produces zero,
they lose everything. Small minority successful, hyper-
minority insanely successful. 100 composers, 10 write music
that's played. Of their 1,000 songs, 30 are played 50% of
the time.
JCT: "Compete to produce" is key. It's not that so many
produce zero but that they could not or would not be able to
sell what they produced. In a game with not enough money,
who rates success in selling?
MATTHEW PRINCIPLE OF POSITIVE FEEDBACK "TAKEN FROM"
- It's expressed from the Matthew Principle: "To those who
have everything, more will be given, and from those who have
nothing, everything will be taken." A vicious statement.
This happens everywhere.
JCT: This is Christ's most quoted verse, 7 times. In 1)
Matthew 13:10 and 2) 25:29; in 3) Luke 8:10 and 4) 19:26,
again in 5) Marc 4:25, and twice more in the deleted but
newly-found Nag Hammadi scrolls in 6) Thomas 41 and 7)
Apocalypse of Peter (VII,3) 83:27. That's how important the
Matthew-Luke-Marc-Thomas-Peter Principle is.
In 1995, my post "Christ spoke in Differential Equations
suggesting this was a Differential Equation (which shows how
things change over time) offended the internet world so
badly that I was voted July Kook-of-the-Month!
The key word is "taken." How would pollen be taken from some
bees and given to others as money is taken from some humans
who have nothing and given to others who have abundance? How
do you take from those who have nothing? Only through
increased debt in a money system!
JP: - Winning increases chances of more winning. Spirals out
of control until a few have all the money. We don't know
what to do about that? Marx said: Capital tended to
accumulate into the hands of the fewer and fewer people, a
flaw in the capitalist system. That's wrong, it is not a
flaw, it's a feature of every system we've ever set up and
how it operates.
JCT: Even if Marx didn't understand what force was taking
from the poor to give to the rich, he still found that to be
a flaw. And even if it's been a feature of every system ever
set up by the rulers and how it operates, as Jesus defined
and named the problem in Matthew, he also explained what to
do about that in Paul Corr II, 8:14.
JP: As soon as you set up production, you set up a
competition and the spoils go disproportionately to a tiny
percentage of people. So the rest of the people starve.
Tendency is to be distributed inequitably. If you let a
monetary system run, all the money ends up in the hands of a
very small number. And any creative endeavour too.
JCT: You farm your land, I farm mine, where's the
competition? Sure, you may grow more than me but why would I
end up not having enough? Why should all the goods be given
disproportionally to you and be taken from me so I should
starve? It can only be because competition is in selling the
production for scarce money, not in growing it.
JP: Marxism is ignorant of the Pareto principle
https:youtu.be/i0iL0ixoZYo
- If you don't have any money, it's really hard to get some.
Once you have some, it's not so hard to get some more.
JCT: Because having some gets you more from positive
feedback with no work.
JP: But if you're at zero, Jesus man, you're in the reverse
situation. You're poor, you don't have anything, no one
wants to talk to you, you can't get out of it because you're
too poor to get out of it, You're penalized by the economic
system because you can't even afford to start playing the
game. You're stuck at zero. And you can't get out.
JCT: Jesus called when all has been taken away from you
living in the "alley where men weep and gnash their teeth."
- The revolutionary types tell the people stuck at zero, why
don't you burn the whole God-Damned thing to the ground?
Because, maybe in the next iteration, you won't be stuck at
zero. And for young men, that's a hell of a call. They're
already expendable, biologically, that makes them more
adventurous and risk-taking. Maybe why they wear the Che
Gueverra T-shirt. Hey, I'm stuck at zero, I'd rather be
with the romantic burning everything to the ground than stay
locked in my immobile position.
JCT: Thoughout all history people have been pushed to revolt
by their poverty through growing debts, not scarcity. But
Jesus did offer a better way used in his commune "The Poor."
Don't think when he said to the rich man "Give your money to
the poor and follow me" he meant give it to the drunks in
the street. He meant "give it to our commune Treasurer who
can buy others out of debt.
It is clear from your descriptions that Pareto Distributions
arise as a function of positive feedback on wealth and debt.
JP: Pareto Distributions https:youtu.be/TcEWRykSgwE
- Monopoly: One person ends up with all the money is the
inevitable consequence of multiple trades that are conducted
randomly. Get 1,000 people to play a trading game each with
$100 and they have to trade with another person by flipping
a coin, I win the coin toss, you win, I give you a dollar.
If we all play that long enough, 1 person will end up with
all the money and everyone else will stack up at zero.
JCT: Sure, Risk of Ruin flipping coins with no edge to
either player with "b" bets is exp(-2(0)b/s^2)= 1. Flipping
coins, or playing War, eventually a player will hit a streak
bad enough to break him. But there is no positive feedback
causing the guy with more cards or more bets to win faster
though the guy with more cards or more bets has lower risk
of ruin.
JP: So it's a deeply built feature of systems of creative
production and no one really knows what to do about it.
Because the danger is all the resources get funnelled to a
tiny minority at the top. A huge section of the population
stacks up at zero. To blame that on the oppressive nature of
the system is to radically underestimate the complexity of
the problem.
JCT: That's a positive feedback where those up now win
faster on account of their bigger bankroll. Winning faster
with a bigger bankroll, not surviving more. That's how the
mort-gage death-gamble contract works, all the resources get
funnelled to the tiny surviving minority in the banks.
JP: "Socialism will never work" https://youtu.be/rl-JYD7Ss8A
- How you got your success.. more opportunities..
Opportunities don't multiply linearly but exponentially.
- When you start moving up, it's faster and faster.. and get
to a point where you have so many you don't know what to do
with them. A non-linear improvement. Downside is the same.
Seems to be how the world works.. There's a center point
unstable, things improve, then they improve exponentially.
Or they fall and they fall off exponentially. That seems to
be what's driving inequality. You start to succeed and the
probability that you succeed starts to expand. We don't know
how to control it. Same with stars. A few stars in the Milky
Way have all the matter. It applies to height of the trees
in the jungle.
JCT: Exponentiality is caused by positive feedback, where
the rate of change is a function of how much you already
have. Stars experience the positive feedback of gravity.
Bigger stars exert more pull as a function of their size.
Taller trees experience positive feedback of more sunlight
as a function of their height.
JP: If we could come up with a way to flatten inequality,
that would be a good thing.
JCT: Jesus who wrote the Matthew Principle also offered a
way to flatten inequality. See Paul Corr II: 8:14 at the end
and won't give it away now.
JP: But the empirical evidence suggests, if you look at the
attempts to alleviate inequality over the last 200 years,
whether left- or right-wing governments, made absolutely no
difference. The only thing to flatten inequality are
catastrophes, wars, revolutions. The price of radical
redistribution is death. No one has come up with a system.
JCT: Without having defined the cause of the positive
feedback, of course, they all failed to stop or mitigate it.
But Jesus defined the cause and succeeded in alleviating it.
JP: It's not a function of our economic or political
systems, or if it is, it's at such a deep level that we
don't know what drives it and we certainly don't know how to
control it.
JCT: In the Matthew Principle verses, he did mention that it
is at such a deep level that "they will forever be hearing
without hearing and seeing without seeing or understanding"
what's driving it or how to control it. Jesus did. Paul Corr
II 8:14
JP: Pareto Distributions https:youtu.be/TcEWRykSgwE :
- No one actually knows how to effectively shovel resources
from the minority that controls almost everything to the
majority that has almost nothing in any consistent way.
Because as you shovel money down, it tends to move right
back up. And it's a big problem.
JCT: Jesus did. Forget shoveling it from the rich to the
poor, stop the shovelling from the poor to the rich first.
Until the force that makes money "tend to move right back
up" is identified, how can it be stopped? And then Paul Corr
II 8:14 even if there is no positive feedback.
JP: After the Ukrainian peasants were granted their land and
started to become farmers, a tiny minority of them became
extremely successful and those people produced almost all of
the food for Russia and Ukraine.
JCT: Who and what stopped the others from also producing
food so that only the successful ones keep could producing
and selling?
JP: Poverty causes crime? Wrong! - The Gini coefficient
https:youtu.be/M3XYHPAwBzE
- Gini Coefficient represents how much inequality of income
distribution in a geographical area.
- You hear poverty causes crime, a left-wing idea. It's
wrong, seriously wrong, importantly, definititely wrong.
- Relative poverty causes crime. Poverty is when you don't
have enough to eat. Relative poverty is when the guy next
door has a much better car
JCT: When you don't have enough to eat, that's not
poverty unless there's plenty of good and you can't afford
any, it's scarcity. Poverty is when you don't have enough
money to get into the game. What crime would be committed
when there's no poverty? Scarcity may not cause much crime
but poverty causes lots.
JP: Right wing thinks the spoils go to who deserves them.
JCT: If it were a natural risk of ruin function, sure, but
if it's a positive feedback from those who do not have to
those who have, getting more without work for having more,
it is unearned income.
JP: Every man can go for it and do his best and the winner wins
and the loser loses. Don't ask me to fix it, I don't want
to. I find it distasteful to attempt to fix it.
JCT: I would too if it were a natural force. But if it's a
man-made systemic force taking from the negatives to give to
the positives, I would end it. Risk of ruin in a fair game
is not exponential. If it is exponential, it's human-caused
taking from one to give to another.
JP: You shouldn't let income distribution become too unequal
because it tends to get out of hand, towards a few people
having everything and almost everyone else having nothing.
It's as natural consequence of economic progression.
JCT: A few having everything and everyone else having
nothing is not a natural consequence of economic progression
but of positive feedback on winning.
JP: The more unequal you let your society get, the higher
the probability of death through violent causes. If men see
status differences but have no means of moving forward, they
turn to aggression as a way of establishing dominance.
JCT: So if violence is generated by inequality, why not
crime too?
JP: The Fundamental Flaws Of Marxism And Postmodernism
https://youtu.be/HdN9RTo-9G8
- How can people be sane with all the brutality in life?
JCT: The force creating a competition to the death, your
having nothing and starving will engender brutal resistance,
is so ingrained, it's like playing musical chairs to the
death, a death-gamble, a mort-gage. All you can do is say:
There, but for the grace of God, go I too."
JP: Suffering is part of being, not a consequence of social
organization..
JCT: The force taking from the hungry to feed the full is a
consequence of social orgainzation. Jesus identified it in
the Parables of the Talents and of the Minas:
"The law is: "to those who have will more be given and
from those who have not, even what they have will be
taken away! You should have brought me what was mine
with interest! Take what is his and give to him who has
and throw him into the alley where men weep and gnash
their teeth."
Jesus says the Pareto Distribution caused by the Matthew
Differential Equation is the force taking from the negatives
to give to the positives: interest on loans.
And how would Jesus solve the inequality caused by either
lesser production rates or usury to have a Christian
Commune is given in Paul Corrinthians II, 8:14:
"Your abundance should at the present time be a supply
for their want to that later, their abundance may be a
supply for your want; in that way, he who gathers much
doesn't have too much and he who gathers little doesn't
have too little, that there be equality."
So he who gathers much has lots but not too much and he who
gathers little has less but not too little though later
trying to win and pay it back. That's the loveliest line in
the Bible, the ethos of a Christian Commune where the Pareto
Distribution can not arise whether natural or unnatural
inequality if the winners help the losers become winners
too.
From: http://SmartestMan.Ca/poembibl
HOW INTEREST ARISES
One tale to show how interest occurs quite easily,
Especially when humans find themselves in scarcity:
A father leaving his estate, his sons he has but four,
To each of them he gives a sac of seed to grow some more.
The first son had misfortune due to natural event,
The loss of crop to a tornado, the predicament.
The second son, he suffered too, with locusts in his field,
His children soon would starve after an insufficient yield.
The third son had a tiny crop, but it was touch-and-go,
He had eight kids who ate most everything that he could grow.
The fourth son's crop was bountiful, his granaries were full.
His brothers asked if some spare seeds might be available.
In his right ear he heard advice that he knew to be true,
"Do help them out and should you fail, they'll be there helping you."
But in his wrong ear he heard words so greedy in their tone,
"Don't risk security for your success was all your own.
But if you rent your seeds to them and gain from what they reap,
You soon won't have to work with interest to earn your keep."
At some point in man's history, a brother chose that way,
Enslaved with debt all of the others lasting to this day.
WHO THE LORD MUST BE
Ezekiel 34:27 says the poor will know,
When they've been liberated from those who've enslaved them so.
The one who breaks the evil bars of yoke of slavery,
He'll be their savior, that's for sure. No other can he be.
NEW TESTAMENT
Like Nehemiah, Jesus knew a Lord must set them free,
And fight the men who had imposed the yoke of slavery.
In Luke 4 verse 18 he says "Anointed by the Lord,
I preach the good news to the poor, a world they can afford.
The prisoners shall be set free, oppressed shall be released,
When comes the year of our Lord's favor, you will surely feast."
In Matthew chapter 13:10, it tells where he was asked,
Why did he speak in parables so meanings they were masked?
"The reason for disguise of message," note the words he said:
"It all comes down to interest, the theme affects the head.
To those who have abundance will be given even more,
From those without abundance will be taken from their store."
This mathematical equation states the function best,
This Biblical description of the function interest.
To those with spare, the positives, they'll get some extra perks,
And those with none, they'll have to pay, that's how the system works.
The rich get richer, poor get poorer. It's not brotherhood.
It's obvious that interest is Reverse-Robin-Hood.
This rule of more abundance was repeated down the line,
In Matthew 13:12 and 25 verse 29,
In Luke 19 verse 26, with 8:18 as well,
In Marc 4:25, five times Christ used these words for Hell.
In Thomas 41 from Nag Hammadi scrolls anew,
Apocalypse of Peter 83:27 too
Omitted from the Bible but in Gnostic Text is found,
The greatest of all Christian laws for economics sound.
St. Thomas in verse 95's where Jesus said it best:
"If you have money, do not lend it out at interest,
But rather give it to one from whom you won't get it back,"
Thus helping out the poorest saves us from financial lack.
So Paul to the Corinthians 2, Chapter 8, 14,
We find abundance matched to need with charity foreseen,
"Your own abundance now should be supplying for their need,
That their abundance later will supply you your own seed.
And in this way, who gathers much will not have over-fill,
And he who gathers little will be taken care of still.
And in this way there soon will be a rich equality,
Where people help each other with great productivity."
Abundance had two ancient laws from which he had to choose,
Abundance increase for the rich or loans for those who lose.
To those who have abundance will be given even more,
From those without abundance will be taken from their store, or
Your own abundance now should be supplying for their need,
That their abundance later will supply you your own seed.
JCT: In 1984, I financed the interest-free LETS timebank
software, in 1993, my 28-table Casino Turmel was shut down
in the biggest raid in history, the O.P.P. Project Robin
Hood Raid on Casino Turmel's 28-table underground game, I
spent the million I won before it was seized as Proceeds of
Crime to found the Abolitionist Party of Canada and run for
Prime Minister which then got me invited to the United
Nations Millennium Assembly where I gave the speech on the
banking system of the new millennium resulting in the
UNILETS Millennium Declaration C6 to "restructure the global
financial architecture" with an "alternative time-based
currency." Sadly, the Millennium Declaration has now been
corrupted to delete that.
I can only point out that the only character in fiction with
my credentials, Science and Game Theory, is Mr. Spock, which
could explain my accomplishments.
I live beside the Brantford casino and invite you for coffee
to about saving the world's poor from the Pareto
Distribution.
My latest poem:
1974: TRUDEAU'S DEBT SCAM
As Canada's Debt National had much stability
Til 19 7 4 starts exponentiality.
Same in Ontario, Quebec, debt doubling time and time,
Did debts all start to grow in big coincidence sublime?
The Bank of Canada made loans to Provinces and Fed,
Without the interest that causes budgets to turn red.
It funded major projects, made St. Lawrence Seaway be,
Trans-Canada was highway built from sea to shining sea.
Not only infrastructure, even paid for World War Two,
With interest-free cash, we almost nothing couldn't do.
The only tax was for depreciation and repair,
So easily affordable without the banker's share.
But in 1974, Pierre cut the money feed:
Said "No more interest-free loans for infrastructure need.
All governments must borrow now new funds from private banks,
And raise new tax to service interest with bankers' thanks."
But worse in 1968, Pierre Trudeau'd lifted cap,
On interest from 6 percent to 60, that's the rap.
In 12 years central bank rate rose to 22 percent.
More tax to service greater debt at higher rate was spent.
Pierre Trudeau is responsible for debts out of control,
By lifting rate cap, ending infrastructure loans, his role.
Though Canada sure could have offered all a living swell,
But Pierre in 19 7 4 turned Heaven into Hell.
I'll pay my tax for army and police to handle strife,
I'll pay my tax for doctors, nurses who protect my life,
I'll pay my tax for all engaged repairing road and sewer,
I'll pay my tax for social servants helping out the poor,
I'll even pay my tax for bureaucrats with no regret,
But I object to paying tax for interest on debt.
I'll gladly pay my tax for people's time at useful toil,
But taxing me for money's time will always make me boil.
While Justin could make loans again without the usury,
Can we expect but more bad fruit from father's crooked tree.
Like dad, a prostitute to power, doing what he's told.
A follower, a Beta-boy, no Alpha leader bold.
Our taxes disappear since over 40 years ago,
For interest on Trudeau's debt we didn't have to owe.
If Mr. Spock could at computer central all alone,
Debug bad code to save a planet, skill we too may hone.
No help he needed from the lo-tech slows who could not see,
What Spock can do, The Engineer says: "Also true for me."
To get back all $2 trillion taxed since Pierre helped banks, us, fleece,
Reversing algorithm gets back $60 Grand apiece!

I moved to London in May 2015 and have filed an extension so that I can satisfy the Physical Presence test requirement needed to qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. This has allowed me to deduct all earnings provided to me by my employer since May 1.
Here's where the situation gets sticky: In addition to my wages, I also have roughly $20,000 in gambling winnings from Full Tilt Poker (online poker) which I had in my account when the site became insolvent back in 2011, and these funds were finally released to me in November 2015. Now, I know I should have filed these in my 2011 taxes, but I didn't because all U.S. player accounts were locked and there was no reason to expect the funds would ever be paid (Full Tilt had $600 million liabilities and $4 million in cash). Fortunately, Pokerstars bought them out under the conditions that they would payout all players' accounts. The remittance process took several years, and the payment was not made to me until I was living in London. Now that I have been paid, I have a few questions as to how I should proceed:
a) As these funds were paid to me while I was living abroad, can I claim them under the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion? I'm guessing not because it's probably considered unearned income.
b) If I considered myself a professional poker player in 2011 (because it was my only source of income for several years, including the first 4 months of 2011), can this payment be considered earned income?
c) If either a or b applies, does it matter that this November 2015 payment was made to my U.S. bank account?
d) Does it even make sense for me to file them at all? I was not provided a 1099 for these funds, presumably because I was supposed to have included them in my tax filings for 2011 (and probably 2010 because some of that $20,000 was earned in 2010 but had not been cashed out). The statute of limitations is either 3 or 6 years depending on how the situation is interpreted, so any 2010 earnings are untouchable anyways, and the 2011 portion of the winnings likely represented less than 25% of my earned income for the year, so that is probably untouchable as well.
Obviously, this is a rather unique situation and I have no doubt that it falls within some legal grey areas. I'd like to figure out how to optimize my tax situation while still having a reasonable defense in the highly unlikely event of an audit.
Thanks for any insight you might be able to provide.