Canadian Online Poker Tax Thread

[jimmyfingers]

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I'm not answering from any level of tax expertise, just common sense.

If you report your winnings at the tables as your income, yes rake is deductable, and you've ALREADY deducted it. If you sit at a table with $50, and leave with $60, I would call that $10 profit. If I paid $2 rake during that session, I actually made $12 before the rake. I've effectively deducted the rake already. Since I've deducted the rake, it only makes sense to me that rakeback would be taxable.

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right, that all makes sense if you're in a situation where your winnings are taxable. in that situation i agree that winnings + rakeback should be taxed.

however, what if your poker winnings aren't taxable? should your rakeback payments be taxable then? and as a follow up, since we didn't deduct rake as an expense against our winnings, can we now deduct it against rakeback?