IRA for Professional Gambler

[Oak Bull]

I'd skip the tax break this year (since you're not claiming much income) and use a Roth. When you are retired and drawing money from a 401k, IRA, Roth IRA, ect. you can't really hide your income as well, and will probably end up in a higher tax bracket. At that time, it's nice to be able to draw from the Roth tax-free. Withdrawls from traditional and SEP IRAs are taxable as ordinary income.

In your situation, I'd rather have a tax break on a large sum of money 30 years from now in a high bracket than write off a small amount now while in a relatively low bracket.