The Culture War - Tim Pool - Trump Bill Will END Fantasy Sports And Pro Poker, POISON PILL Could Ban Gambling And BLOCK Bill

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00:01:00.000 Yeah, like if I'm in Vegas, do you think I want to see this pass?

00:01:04.980 If I'm like at any level of government, if I'm in any of the casinos,

00:01:08.000 if I'm DraftKings, if I'm FanDuel, if I'm you name it, I'm MGM,

00:01:11.760 I'm like any of these entities, they're not going to want to see this pass

00:01:15.380 because it's going to hurt their bottom line.

00:01:18.220 And luckily, I hope you're right.

00:01:19.400 I hope maybe that's what this is.

00:01:20.840 But you certainly feel the heat when it's your industry on the line.

00:01:24.660 From Newsweek, Trump's big, beautiful bill could kill professional gambling.

00:01:29.260 This is an incorrect headline.

00:01:31.460 It could actually end gambling as we know it.

00:01:35.840 Now, many conservatives are cheering for it.

00:01:38.040 Okay, by all means, I don't care.

00:01:39.760 You're allowed to have that opinion.

00:01:41.100 I think gambling is largely bad as well.

00:01:43.620 I got no problem with people having booze.

00:01:45.780 I have a problem with alcoholism and addiction.

00:01:48.080 And I appreciate treatments for this.

00:01:49.760 I've got no problem with gambling.

00:01:51.300 I have a problem with gambling addiction

00:01:53.040 and people whose lives get destroyed by it.

00:01:56.240 Within a certain within within reason, these things can be fine and okay, but they do get abused.

00:02:02.740 And so when you see the mass expansion of casinos, you have to wonder what's happening to our society.

00:02:07.820 So naturally, if there are regulations or restrictions, I'm not going to cry about it.

00:02:12.420 But I'll tell you what I really think with this.

00:02:14.900 I think that this provision was put into the bill to sabotage it

00:02:19.420 because they can't afford to have even one GOP member of Congress break.

00:02:23.900 And now they have to.

00:02:25.380 What this bill will do, as I've been talking about it yesterday and this morning,

00:02:28.560 and again, we're going to be joined by Doug Polk, who's going to break down for us

00:02:31.160 how this will affect the poker pro industry and what it means for professional gaming.

00:02:35.320 This means that even if you're a casual player, it's not about professional gambling,

00:02:39.360 a casual player.

00:02:41.040 Let's say you go to Vegas just for a weekend and you want to see Katy Perry.

00:02:45.940 Well, you can't.

00:02:46.540 She got fired. 0.97

00:02:47.240 But let's say you want to see Penn and Teller.

00:02:49.340 And while you're there at the old Rio, you say,

00:02:51.860 I'll play some blackjack for a little bit with my friends.

00:02:54.540 It's a little bit of gaming.

00:02:55.460 You're not addicted to gambling.

00:02:56.860 You're just having fun with your friends and it's fun to see what the cards come up.

00:02:59.900 And so you set a budget for yourself for your holiday weekend.

00:03:02.780 It's two weeks out of the year.

00:03:03.800 You say, I'm going to bet 500 bucks.

00:03:04.980 I'm going to play 500 bucks.

00:03:05.920 It's all I'm going to do.

00:03:07.260 You know, I'm here to have a good time.

00:03:08.700 You get free drinks while you do it.

00:03:10.280 Hey, what people don't understand is what this bill does.

00:03:14.100 It says you can't, you can only write off 90% of your losses, no matter who you are,

00:03:18.520 pro or otherwise.

00:03:20.260 If you play $500 and you're winning half the time and losing half the time,

00:03:24.580 you might actually just end up leaving even maybe a little bit down.

00:03:28.520 However, if you bet $500 one time and you win, your winnings are $500.

00:03:34.980 If you then bet $500 again and lose, your losses are $500 of which you could only write off 450.

00:03:42.160 Meaning the government considers you to have made $50.

00:03:45.900 That's what this bill will do.

00:03:47.220 It makes literally no sense.

00:03:49.060 And I'm going to say it again.

00:03:50.280 I believe it was intentionally put in the bill because they want it to fail.

00:03:54.960 They put something in that conservatives are going to cheer for, which will cause one Republican to bail.

00:04:01.020 So instead of just sitting here rambling on it for eight hundred times,

00:04:04.120 what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull in poker professional Doug Polk,

00:04:08.660 who's going to talk about how this will affect his industry.

00:04:11.600 I want to ask him about the size of the industry, where we're at with things like the World Series of Poker,

00:04:14.760 of which I'm a big poker player and poker fan as well.

00:04:17.980 But this is a big issue which could sabotage the entirety of Trump's agenda.

00:04:22.400 Hearing what Doug, I say, will be particularly interesting.

00:04:25.940 So we've got Doug Polk here now.

00:04:27.400 Doug, can you hear me?

00:04:28.680 Yeah, I can hear you, Tim.

00:04:29.380 How's it going, man?

00:04:30.240 Hey, man.

00:04:30.780 Welcome.

00:04:31.180 Welcome.

00:04:31.540 Thanks for joining me.

00:04:32.440 So for those that are not familiar, do you want to just briefly introduce yourself?

00:04:36.020 Yeah, my name is Doug Polk.

00:04:37.300 I've been a professional poker player for, man, I don't even know, 10, 15 years.

00:04:41.940 I have a poker YouTube channel called Doug Polk Poker.

00:04:45.120 I do everything poker.

00:04:46.500 I represent a poker room online.

00:04:48.960 I have my own poker room in Texas.

00:04:50.220 Actually, I have two locations.

00:04:51.480 So I'm basically everything poker, Tim.

00:04:53.600 Right on.

00:04:54.120 So Trump's big, beautiful bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation,

00:05:00.160 if not the most, for Trump's agenda.

00:05:01.760 When the Senate debated over the weekend, they put in this, and I've been investigating this,

00:05:08.700 so we'll get into that in a little bit, a provision that says that you can only write

00:05:12.400 off 90% of gambling losses.

00:05:15.380 Now, you are the poker guy.

00:05:18.340 You're one of the big poker guys.

00:05:19.340 You're one of the biggest influencers in the space.

00:05:21.320 So what I want to say first to most people, as I already stressed before we started, again,

00:05:25.460 I think this is a poison pill meant to sabotage Trump's agenda because this is a nuclear

00:05:31.740 bomb on Las Vegas, Atlantic City, any casino in the country, the entirety of the poker industry,

00:05:36.760 fantasy sports.

00:05:37.780 But let's start from the beginning.

00:05:39.520 And you, as a poker professional, explain to me what this bill would do to your businesses,

00:05:45.340 your clubs, your industry.

00:05:46.960 Sure.

00:05:47.420 So taking a step back here and just looking at specifically this car belt, right, because

00:05:52.040 there's a lot of stuff in this bill, all kinds of different things going on.

00:05:55.160 I'm trying not to take a political stance, any of that, just as it pertains to gambling

00:05:58.820 specifically, the way that it's written appears to me not written in the best terminology.

00:06:05.000 It's a little bit tough to decipher.

00:06:06.180 But basically, it seems like you can only write off up to 90% of your losses.

00:06:12.440 And I can give you a couple of really basic examples here.

00:06:14.500 So let's just say you gamble over the course of the year.

00:06:17.700 You win $1 million.

00:06:19.240 You lose $1 million.

00:06:20.680 In any other industry, you break even, right?

00:06:22.660 You're out zero.

00:06:23.500 You made nothing.

00:06:24.340 You owe on nothing.

00:06:25.420 Nothing really happened, right?

00:06:26.440 You net it out.

00:06:27.920 But what this new provision says is that you actually owe on 10% of the winnings because

00:06:33.780 you can only write off 90% of the losses.

00:06:37.120 So basically, you are now taxing either losing gamblers, you're taxing winning gamblers extra

00:06:43.140 on top.

00:06:43.880 It's basically just, you know, yeah, we'll take a little piece of that.

00:06:47.000 Why?

00:06:47.600 Oh, just because it's thrown into this bill at the last second.

00:06:49.540 We're just going to go ahead and do it.

00:06:50.600 So the impact this has on gambling is tremendous.

00:06:53.660 It most impacts people in two specific scenarios.

00:06:56.800 Let's take a look first at like if you're a recreational gambler, maybe you like to play

00:07:00.200 slot machines, you have to go to blackjack, play blackjack, you go to Vegas every now and

00:07:03.500 then.

00:07:04.140 Well, maybe over the course of the year, you know, you lose $20,000, $30,000 gambling,

00:07:07.860 $10,000, $5,000, it doesn't really matter.

00:07:10.400 And then you have that big score.

00:07:11.980 You hit the jackpot for $20,000, whatever it might be.

00:07:15.020 Well, if you now go to do your taxes and you want to deduct all of those losses beforehand,

00:07:20.500 now you actually can't deduct all those and you're now paying taxes on money you lost,

00:07:25.460 which is fundamentally wrong.

00:07:27.620 Additionally, and this is probably more impactful for people kind of in my sector, if you are

00:07:31.660 a professional gambler, well, now it is imperative that your edge is gigantic.

00:07:36.580 And just to break that down a little bit, there are many gambling industries where people just

00:07:39.900 have a fraction of a fraction of an edge.

00:07:41.620 I think of the movie 2021, right, where the MIT blackjack team had to, you know, count

00:07:47.660 the card to get a small edge.

00:07:49.100 Those guys, they had like one, two, 3% edges at most where they're betting these huge dollar

00:07:54.420 amounts.

00:07:55.120 You now need to break this 10% barrier to even be able to gamble profitably.

00:07:59.980 So what that means is for people that are smaller edge professional gamblers, which let's

00:08:04.000 face it, that's most professional gamblers today, you can no longer profitably be taking

00:08:08.340 these bets because you can't clear that 10% barrier.

00:08:11.200 So it impacts recreational gamblers.

00:08:13.540 It impacts professional gamblers.

00:08:15.500 I would imagine, Tim, that there are tens of thousands of professional gamblers in this

00:08:19.160 country that their jobs will be eliminated immediately if this bill goes into effect.

00:08:24.420 Thousands of Texans in my state, tens of thousands of people outside of the state.

00:08:28.180 And personally, like, I don't think this is even an issue that either side, the left or

00:08:32.300 the right is kind of passionate about.

00:08:33.760 It just feels like this got thrown in there.

00:08:35.500 You're alluding to maybe a poison pill.

00:08:37.120 I don't know.

00:08:37.660 But there's no mistake here.

00:08:40.180 If this passes, its impact on gambling will be tremendous.

00:08:44.260 The mayor of Las Vegas came out with a press conference this morning saying the bill was

00:08:47.760 bad because it's going to strip medical care and stuff like that. 1.00

00:08:51.280 And I just laughed because we talked about it last night on Timcast IRL.

00:08:55.360 And I said, there's no way Las Vegas will let this bill pass.

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00:09:28.200 And sure enough, first sure enough, first thing in the morning, the mayor of Vegas comes out

00:09:32.000 saying, oh, this bill is really bad.

00:09:33.800 We can't have it.

00:09:35.100 You've got a gaming caucus, a bunch of all the Democrats, of course, are going to vote

00:09:40.440 no because they oppose Trump's agenda.

00:09:42.460 And the Republicans, you'd expect largely to vote yes.

00:09:45.140 I had people tell me any Republican who votes no will never get reelected because Donald

00:09:50.760 Trump is going to primary them and go up against them.

00:09:53.300 However, I'd also I'd also argue that in Louisiana, in New Jersey, in Vegas, any Republican

00:10:00.900 member of Congress who votes for this bill is also not going to get reelected.

00:10:06.000 There's one rep out of Nevada whose largest contributor is the gaming industry.

00:10:10.540 So here's one thing that I want to clarify, and you can help me out with this.

00:10:13.900 When we say things like you get you, you wager a million dollars in one, you lose a million

00:10:20.200 dollars in a year gambling and you make a million dollars.

00:10:23.220 Most people don't understand how those numbers play out.

00:10:27.740 They assume this means that a millionaire walks into a casino and says, I'm going to bet

00:10:32.620 a million dollars just dumping money from his bank account.

00:10:35.480 And then he gets lucky and wins it all back.

00:10:37.540 But that's not actually how it works.

00:10:38.940 So when you as like a poker pro are tracking your winnings and losings, like what is what

00:10:45.860 is an average amount of total money wagered for for a poker pro, say, like at the highest

00:10:51.100 level?

00:10:51.940 Would it be like a million dollars?

00:10:53.420 What would the number be?

00:10:54.820 So that's a really great point you bring up.

00:10:56.640 I'd like to kind of maybe dissect that a little bit for a high stakes player.

00:11:00.180 There are tournaments that are one million dollars.

00:11:02.040 So a very high stakes player might be spending five, 10, 15, 20 million dollars a year just

00:11:06.420 in buy-ins to play all of the highest stakes tournaments in the world.

00:11:09.020 But I just thought to hone in on what you're saying, because it's a great point.

00:11:11.840 I should have addressed it before.

00:11:13.420 Let's just say that you only like to gamble for a few hundred dollars at a time, right?

00:11:16.840 You go down to your local casino, you play in a tournament every day.

00:11:20.000 Well, you know, maybe that buy-in is $200 and maybe you play it a hundred times.

00:11:24.300 That's $20,000 in losses that you have.

00:11:27.960 And then you deduct all of your cashes against that.

00:11:30.580 Maybe one day you had a big win for $8,000.

00:11:33.140 Maybe most of the time you lose.

00:11:34.620 But the point is, it's that same money as long as it's taken over time.

00:11:39.580 It's like the net result of all of the wins and losses.

00:11:42.060 It's gross wins, gross losses.

00:11:44.260 Because you're supposed to be, there's two ways to do your taxes.

00:11:46.940 I'm not a tax attorney, clearly.

00:11:48.900 But just generally, as I understand it, there are two ways to do your taxes.

00:11:52.340 You can either take the standard deduction or you can itemize.

00:11:55.220 And when you have a big gambling win, typically you itemize because you can get the maximum

00:11:58.700 deduction back against your gambling win.

00:12:00.340 That makes sense.

00:12:00.980 We're going to pay the least tax you possibly can within the confines of the law.

00:12:05.000 But this now penalizes that massively for someone who is in that scenario we mentioned earlier,

00:12:10.500 where you're just playing your small stakes gambling game every day.

00:12:13.860 And then finally, you have that one big day.

00:12:15.800 Well, now Uncle Sam's come and knock him for 10%, even though you've lost money.

00:12:20.120 I really feel like it's wrong.

00:12:21.960 So I think the big impact, fantasy sports are going to get hit massively by this, which

00:12:27.680 is massively, I think they were expecting in 2025 fantasy sports to double the amount

00:12:33.100 of, I don't want to say revenue generated, but the market share, the amount of money that

00:12:39.140 passes through is expected to hit something like $25 billion.

00:12:41.020 Tons of guys love, they bet small amounts.

00:12:44.660 They have a fantasy team.

00:12:45.460 They play daily.

00:12:46.580 What ends up happening is, you know, I try explaining this to people that I might say

00:12:52.120 something like, oh, I've, I've gambled $10,000 last year. 0.97

00:12:55.400 And they're like, geez, are you nuts? 0.96

00:12:57.020 You wasted 10,000. 0.95

00:12:58.460 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:12:59.540 I went to the casino.

00:13:00.860 I put a hundred bucks on a slot machine and press the button for a $5 bet.

00:13:04.720 And I won $20.

00:13:05.940 I then press it again.

00:13:07.160 And I lost $5.

00:13:08.960 Every time you bet $5 on a slot machine, your losses go up.

00:13:14.240 But so I learned this from Vegas.

00:13:16.100 Was it Vegas?

00:13:16.720 Matt?

00:13:17.020 Is that the guy on YouTube?

00:13:18.140 Yeah.

00:13:18.400 Yeah.

00:13:18.780 The slot machine guy.

00:13:19.660 Yeah.

00:13:19.740 I know you're talking about.

00:13:20.380 Yeah.

00:13:20.700 I love watching it.

00:13:22.040 Okay.

00:13:22.460 But he's, he said in one video, he goes, I'm going to wager $100,000.

00:13:26.880 And I'm thinking, whoa, he's going to put a hundred grand in the machine.

00:13:30.860 And then he's going to bet a hundred.

00:13:32.700 It's not what he did.

00:13:33.520 He put like 10 grand in the machine.

00:13:35.680 And then he, he made bets winning and losing back and forth, like 50, 50 until a total amount

00:13:41.740 wager was a hundred.

00:13:42.740 And then he walked away slightly up, like very little.

00:13:46.620 So there could be for, for poker pros or for, for anybody.

00:13:50.760 I, I, I, I think this ends gambling in its entirety.

00:13:55.000 Let's take an extreme example of that.

00:13:57.080 Right.

00:13:57.360 So, um, typically speaking, the way we log results is by session or by tournament, which

00:14:01.820 is typically the way logs work, but let's just go the most extreme, just to kind of highlight

00:14:05.100 your point.

00:14:05.760 Let's just say that we want to look at poker by hand.

00:14:08.280 Okay.

00:14:08.500 So I've played about like 7 million hands in my career.

00:14:11.640 Um, I've looked at what the results look like when you look at all the wins, all the

00:14:14.640 losses and you just make two columns.

00:14:16.200 You know, I've won, like I could make a headline.

00:14:19.220 Like I've won like $800 million in poker.

00:14:21.700 I've, I've just also lost like 785 million in poker.

00:14:25.860 Right.

00:14:26.200 So if we looked at it like that, like I've done really well, but if we look at it, letter

00:14:30.660 of the law here, and we went by hand, like, Oh, I guess I owe money on, uh, you know, $80

00:14:35.220 million I didn't make.

00:14:36.800 And then all of a sudden I'm paying like 32 million out of pocket.

00:14:39.540 You're, you're toast.

00:14:40.260 Right.

00:14:40.500 So, um, if you start to go really extreme on this and you, you, you take it and you,

00:14:45.640 you fine tune comb, fine tooth, whatever the saying is on that, go through it.

00:14:49.640 You can find a way to get dramatically high tax numbers really quickly.

00:14:53.700 And, and frankly, this is what I think is, is the most silly about this is look, I know

00:14:58.560 what's going on here with this bill.

00:14:59.880 Like there's a lot of stuff going on on both sides, but they're trying to find ways to

00:15:03.720 make money that isn't in a way that impacts people where they don't feel it.

00:15:07.920 And it's like, Oh, gamblers, we'll just take a little bit of the gambler money, but it's

00:15:11.600 short-sighted and it doesn't work the way that they think, because you know what?

00:15:15.020 Like the people, when people make money, they're smart and it's kind of like when you see richer

00:15:19.080 people in countries that are aggressively taxed them or states that aggressively tax them,

00:15:22.560 they, they move to where they don't get aggressively taxed.

00:15:25.420 Um, at some point, when you try and add this 10% tax onto gambling, there are now people who

00:15:30.620 cannot gamble.

00:15:31.360 There are people that will not gamble.

00:15:32.400 There are people that will, um, instead of paying taxes, they're going to go, uh, into,

00:15:36.280 into black markets, trying to avoid having to pay those taxes.

00:15:38.680 They're going to go offshore.

00:15:39.800 They're going to go into different games.

00:15:40.900 They might quit entirely.

00:15:42.500 In my opinion, you might see that we end up losing more than this 10% back anyway, just

00:15:47.880 because of the reduction in gambling.

00:15:49.240 And to the point you made at the start of this conversation, is this a poison pill to

00:15:53.100 try and get gaming involved to kill this bill?

00:15:55.480 I don't know.

00:15:56.020 But yeah, like if I'm, if I'm in Vegas, do you think I want to see this pass?

00:15:59.940 If I'm like at any level of government, if I'm in any of the casinos, if I'm draft Kings,

00:16:04.180 if I'm fan duel, if I'm you name it, I'm MGM, I'm saying like any of these entities,

00:16:09.160 they're not going to want to see this pass because it's going to hurt their bottom line.

00:16:12.820 Uh, and luckily, I hope you're right.

00:16:14.360 I hope maybe that's what this is, but you certainly feel the heat when it's your industry

00:16:18.320 on the line.

00:16:19.560 Yeah.

00:16:19.960 You know, like it's certainly not my industry.

00:16:22.140 And I will also add there, there is a strong presence of conservatives that want gambling

00:16:27.360 regulated or banned outright in general.

00:16:29.980 I think there's a big distinction between social poker and casino gambling.

00:16:34.600 Obviously with cash games, uh, you know, you sit down at a table, maybe you have two

00:16:39.340 to $400, whatever, you know, some places might have higher, uh, buy-ins.

00:16:43.040 Yeah.

00:16:43.400 You're, you're putting money on the line, but it's all lumped together and there's no

00:16:48.680 clear line of when it becomes gambling and when it doesn't.

00:16:51.640 Obviously we know gambling, we see it.

00:16:53.020 If you go say, I think the bears are going to win this game.

00:16:55.040 I'm going to put a hundred bucks on it.

00:16:56.340 You're gambling.

00:16:57.160 But if you're sitting at a social poker game, like Texas Hold'em and you don't actually make

00:17:02.540 any bets and that you get your cards first, you look at your cards, you fold, you've wagered

00:17:06.580 no money and you played a hand.

00:17:08.400 So there's, there's a big difference between that.

00:17:10.720 And this is going to destroy what is a, a sport with tournaments.

00:17:16.500 Here's, here's what I think, uh, on the poison pill thing.

00:17:19.680 I, I, I, it is a bad thing.

00:17:22.180 I think the bill's not going to pass because of it.

00:17:24.600 I think it was put in intentionally because people wouldn't understand it.

00:17:29.460 Members of the Senate are going to look at it and say, well, who cares about gambling

00:17:33.540 losses?

00:17:34.120 What does that even mean?

00:17:35.320 And it's a small paragraph, but it's a poison pill because it's $170 billion a year industry.

00:17:42.040 And there's no way Nevada is going to say, we will lose our tourism industry and allow

00:17:48.840 this to happen.

00:17:49.400 But let me, let me, let me bring this to like regular people.

00:17:52.440 Cause I, like I said, I know a lot, there's a lot of conservatives that like find banned

00:17:55.020 gambling for one.

00:17:56.560 It's massively popular.

00:17:57.880 I'm not a big fan of how expansive gambling has gotten with all the casinos everywhere.

00:18:01.800 But what this bill would do is effectively ban all gambling with the only argument being

00:18:07.300 you should lie in your taxes of which legally no one in law, no one in the Senate is going

00:18:13.760 to argue people should do.

00:18:15.080 But this means that if you go to a Vegas vacation, you're like, Hey, at the end of the year,

00:18:18.980 I got two weeks vacation saved up.

00:18:21.060 Vegas has skiing an hour out.

00:18:22.880 They legit, they have a mountain and go skiing.

00:18:24.120 And you can also go to the, go watch a big show.

00:18:27.340 Maybe you want to see Penn and Teller and you're like, I'm going to set aside 500 bucks

00:18:31.500 on my vacation budget for some blackjack and some craps, just to have fun with the family.

00:18:34.980 I'm not a big gambler.

00:18:35.780 But if that $500, let's say you're paying, you're playing craps and you win one, lose

00:18:40.740 one, win one, lose one after, after a weekend of playing that $500 becomes 5,000 in losses,

00:18:48.040 500 in winnings.

00:18:49.140 And you now owe the government on $500 in income you never made.

00:18:54.640 Yeah, you would own the 10% of that, right?

00:18:57.160 So it's absolutely going to blow some people out of the water.

00:19:00.300 I think for the small time gamblers, it won't be too, too impactful unless you have a big

00:19:04.540 score, unless you hit a big jackpot, unless you win a big tournament.

00:19:07.780 Then all of a sudden, you know, the government's going to come knocking, looking for their 10%

00:19:11.420 on something that you didn't even win money in, which I think is like the real issue.

00:19:15.320 There was, in the past four years, in the previous administration, they hired 87,000 IRS agents.

00:19:22.360 And they also announced that they were going to be tracking any transaction over $600.

00:19:27.640 Now, the big argument was the IRS agents are going to help them track down the billionaires.

00:19:32.280 But this is why I see this as a poison pill.

00:19:36.440 I don't see how Vegas or Atlantic City or anybody, like because Maryland's got a big casino industry

00:19:42.060 now, lets this bill pass.

00:19:43.500 And if the argument is you might only pay a few hundred dollars, well, then you've got

00:19:48.560 the issue of maybe right now this administration is not going to hunt you down over your gambler,

00:19:54.280 gambling's, your winnings.

00:19:55.900 But I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future, maybe in a couple of years,

00:19:59.640 this is how this is how the government does it.

00:20:01.760 After texts are filed, you get a bill in the mail saying the casino did track your winnings

00:20:07.340 and lose and losses.

00:20:08.720 Somehow they knew who you are, whatever they've.

00:20:10.540 And then the IRS agents come and they say, hey, look, we noticed your PayPal account,

00:20:13.880 your bank account had this money come in from a deposit.

00:20:17.040 How do you explain that?

00:20:18.280 And then you're going to get a bill for a couple hundred dollars at the end of the year.

00:20:21.940 So I guess I'm curious, though.

00:20:25.280 In Texas, you guys have a big, like there's a big industry of poker clubs.

00:20:29.600 Right.

00:20:29.880 Like, are there a lot of players that are trying to make a living or are just recreational

00:20:34.780 playing every single day?

00:20:36.300 Obviously, there are other sites to stay in the industry, right?

00:20:38.220 Yeah.

00:20:38.840 So poker has really exploded in Texas over the course of the last 10 years or so.

00:20:42.400 We've seen the rise of a very different model.

00:20:44.660 It's people pay a membership fee, seat rental fees.

00:20:47.320 You're not allowed to rake legally in the state of Texas.

00:20:50.200 And so we've seen these rooms pop up in all of the major states where poker is being played

00:20:53.840 by more and more and more players.

00:20:55.640 And I think that's also one of the reasons why when I see this bill, I realize how many

00:20:59.180 people this will impact.

00:21:00.900 And, you know, you talked about a little bit earlier with with people that may now try and

00:21:04.920 avoid paying their taxes.

00:21:06.000 Like, let's just say let's just let's give an impossible scenario.

00:21:08.200 Right.

00:21:08.440 Let's just say you're someone making sixty thousand dollars a year as a poker professional.

00:21:12.500 This 10 percent thing will put you in the red.

00:21:14.420 So now rather than making money, you're going to lose money every year.

00:21:17.580 What do you do?

00:21:18.520 You say, oh, find a new job.

00:21:19.660 I'll quit your career.

00:21:20.640 Well, OK, it's easy to say as someone talking to someone else.

00:21:23.240 But as that person who might have a family, might have children, might

00:21:25.500 now they have to decide between like following this law or losing their career because someone

00:21:30.820 in D.C. just tacked this on to a bill with no discussion, with no thought, with no

00:21:35.720 conversation, with no debate.

00:21:37.720 You know, the impact this will have on people like and certainly I live in Austin, Austin

00:21:42.040 that I know in Houston and Dallas and all these major Texas cities will be will be giant.

00:21:47.100 But it's also going to apply to, you know, all these places across the entire country.

00:21:50.560 And I want to say this just on on kind of the conservative aspect of poker, because it is

00:21:55.480 tricky the way that this works.

00:21:57.040 In my experience here, we've tried to pass laws in Texas to kind of clarify some things

00:22:02.620 as it pertains to gambling.

00:22:04.160 And generally speaking, conservatives have been kind of split with us on whether they

00:22:07.300 support us or not.

00:22:08.560 It sort of boils down to like which camp you're kind of in.

00:22:11.380 They're sort of the more pro business wing of the Republican Party, which is like maybe

00:22:15.560 something I would more lean towards myself.

00:22:17.580 And then you have more of like the conservative Christian values side.

00:22:21.880 The way I kind of see it is like the less government, maybe this is very taxonomy, I

00:22:26.120 don't know, but the less government we have getting involved in people's lives and telling

00:22:29.320 them what they can and can't do, you know, in terms of their taxes, in terms of their

00:22:33.320 businesses, in terms of like their personal lives, in terms of anything that's not impacting

00:22:37.300 the other people around them.

00:22:38.860 I feel like we should have less government, not more.

00:22:41.140 And when I see, you know, a 900 page bill, Tim, where, you know, this is going, our industry

00:22:46.340 is getting attacked this hard.

00:22:47.340 It makes you wonder how many other industries might just have something thrown in there

00:22:50.860 that might have something that's significant impacting them.

00:22:54.220 This is what's crazy is my team, well-connected with the Hill.

00:22:58.260 Several people have, well, we have one individual particularly who worked there for over a decade.

00:23:03.200 Shout out to Lisa.

00:23:03.860 Lisa, and we've been asking around and looking, trying to figure out how this got added at

00:23:09.120 the last minute, in the 11th hour.

00:23:12.360 We can't figure it out, which apparently I'm being told is kind of odd.

00:23:17.880 Who was the senator that put this, it's just two small paragraphs, but it is a nuclear bomb

00:23:25.880 in the gaming industry.

00:23:26.880 And again, I want to stress, you know, I had the other night, we had a conservative

00:23:31.540 on Amber Duke and she laughed and she's like, good, gambling is bad.

00:23:35.060 And it's, it's okay, fine, fine.

00:23:36.860 Like to the conservatives that don't like gambling, by all means, you're allowed not

00:23:40.480 to criticize it all day, every day.

00:23:42.340 But we need to ask ourselves, how did something so nuclear get added to a bill that's putting

00:23:47.300 it at risk of passing in the first place?

00:23:49.140 Because, you know, I find interesting is you were mentioning, you don't want to get political.

00:23:51.800 So here we are, I'm sitting down, I'm a news guy and politics guy talking with a poker

00:23:55.740 pro, a poker pro being concerned over a spending bill, which let me, let me just be honest,

00:24:02.400 ask you, when was the last time you decided to do a big public, you know, discussion on

00:24:08.040 a spending bill?

00:24:09.120 Is this?

00:24:09.400 Oh, I mean, I mean, never, never.

00:24:11.760 I got, Tim, I got dragged in.

00:24:14.360 It's like, I just woke up one day and it's like, your industry is under attack right now

00:24:18.640 on a bill that's going to get voted on maybe tomorrow, you know?

00:24:21.320 You just get thrown into it.

00:24:23.060 I mean, you were the first person I reached out to.

00:24:24.800 I'm like, okay, who do I know that actually has a voice kind of in this space?

00:24:27.340 And obviously, like, I appreciate you giving me the chance to speak and talking about this

00:24:30.700 because it's so important.

00:24:31.620 But when you get dragged in, you have no choice.

00:24:35.440 And it reminds me a little bit about 15 years ago, people might not realize this, but online

00:24:40.300 poker was banned overnight, where basically all of a sudden, one day people could no longer

00:24:45.380 play online poker.

00:24:46.320 The federal government seized all of the sites.

00:24:48.140 Um, and then poker went overseas and it's not been until very recently with sites like

00:24:53.560 club WPT gold that people can come back and play in America.

00:24:56.380 But what happened was because of the UIGEA and, and basically enforcing through the wire

00:25:02.180 act, as I understand it, they seized all of the money of these online poker players

00:25:06.100 and just overnight people's jobs became illegal.

00:25:08.460 I remember having to leave my home, move away from, from my house in Las Vegas, Nevada to

00:25:14.720 Canada to be able to play online and continue to work.

00:25:17.280 And you want the most messed up thing is I had to send, pay my taxes back because America

00:25:21.560 is the only country where even if you live overseas, you have this in your, so I went

00:25:24.500 to Canada to make money to send my taxes back to America because I love this country.

00:25:30.140 And then you have to just deal with these random moments like that. 0.86

00:25:33.660 It's ridiculous. 0.64

00:25:34.800 I, this is why I think it's a poison pill that it was added. 0.97

00:25:38.540 We don't know who added it.

00:25:40.140 Nobody wants to take credit for it.

00:25:41.920 Uh, I think you were right there.

00:25:43.980 They're trying to figure out ways to offset the tax deductions and make it look like the

00:25:48.220 deficit's going to be smaller and the debt spending is going to be, going to be smaller.

00:25:50.940 And I think they did it in a way that most people wouldn't understand, but now Newsweek's

00:25:55.460 written about it.

00:25:56.360 Uh, NBC has written about it.

00:25:58.140 It's popping up.

00:25:59.920 And so Thomas Massey's a no on the bill.

00:26:03.860 Chip Roy, my understanding is also a no on the bill and he's your rep, but not because,

00:26:09.720 but it's not because of the gambling.

00:26:11.480 I don't think anybody even knows about it.

00:26:13.800 I also think it's probably, there's probably other things in the bill that we haven't noticed

00:26:18.220 that are as bad, but yeah.

00:26:20.940 I can't imagine a Republican rep in any of these big gaming States deciding to vote yes

00:26:28.340 on this, especially as I mentioned with the mayor.

00:26:30.300 So my, you know, ultimately it's when you get Doug Polk doing an interview with Tim Poole

00:26:35.720 on a political issue, I think for conservatives who don't like gambling, just the main takeaway

00:26:41.080 from it is they put this in here to trigger a $170 billion industry into a panic against

00:26:49.040 the bill to stop it.

00:26:50.920 And with a single day, I don't know how you get a debate to pull that provision out considering

00:26:56.660 it's already passed the Senate.

00:26:58.180 It seems like the only possible outcome is that the bill will fail and Trump's agenda

00:27:02.840 will be stopped.

00:27:03.480 That's, that's crazy.

00:27:06.700 And if you figured that out, that is, that is, I got to give a tip of my hat to you, man,

00:27:10.340 because that is some, that's some 40 chess.

00:27:13.120 Absolutely.

00:27:13.620 And it does make sense because if you think about the urgency now from my industry to

00:27:17.940 step in here from all of these big players, like I'm not a big casino guy.

00:27:21.320 Like I'm a small time card room owner here in Texas.

00:27:23.440 I do my own stuff.

00:27:24.300 I play online, all these kinds of things.

00:27:25.460 But, um, you have to imagine the amount of money at play here, the amount of money at

00:27:29.900 stake, the impact of this decision is so tremendous that, I mean, I hope it kills the bill like

00:27:34.860 selfishly for, for, for my industry because of how brutal it is for me, not because any

00:27:38.780 of the other stuff I I've, I've honestly not been following that closely.

00:27:41.860 I follow state level politics more than national, but, um, certainly you rile people enough up

00:27:47.200 that have enough power and enough say, and Lord knows that the lobbying in DC from gaming

00:27:52.520 institutions.

00:27:53.040 There's no, there's no reason for this in the bill.

00:27:54.780 It literally makes no sense.

00:27:56.720 There's, there's been no debate on this.

00:27:58.720 There's been no public debate on it.

00:28:00.640 There's been no cultural issue at play.

00:28:02.540 There's been no large gaming, uh, anti-gaming lobby.

00:28:05.640 This came literally out of nowhere.

00:28:07.960 And it is a, it is a tax increase disguised as some kind of, you know, uh, policy position

00:28:14.980 as opposed to a literal tax increase.

00:28:16.940 And it, it does so in a way that is a nuclear bomb on one of the biggest industries we have in

00:28:22.800 the country.

00:28:23.100 That's been expanding rapidly.

00:28:24.320 The only outcome could be to cause an uproar that nukes it's, it's my mind is blown on this

00:28:29.360 just, just to stress one more time.

00:28:31.100 If this, there was, there were a few provisions in the bill, like the short act and the hearing

00:28:35.460 protection act.

00:28:36.060 This would have made it, uh, much easier to attain a suppressor for your gun and a short

00:28:41.680 barreled rifle, which are restricted on something called the national firearms act.

00:28:44.520 There are lobbies that have been fighting really hard for this.

00:28:47.960 Uh, the, the NRA, the NG, what is it?

00:28:50.160 The national gun owners of America.

00:28:51.940 And so this was culturally popping up in the news, but overnight out of nowhere with no conversation

00:28:59.300 whatsoever, they put in one of the weirdest provisions imaginable that could only disrupt

00:29:05.400 Trump's agenda.

00:29:06.080 And then you just said it, Doug, you said you hope the bill fails for that reason.

00:29:09.500 Cause it's in tack on your industry.

00:29:10.900 I think that was the play.

00:29:12.820 So, so let me just, um, ask you one more, one more question.

00:29:16.440 So people can understand the scale of this.

00:29:17.920 Uh, do you know how many, uh, players so far are expected to be at the world series of poker

00:29:23.140 starting today?

00:29:24.220 Well, the timing is crazy, right?

00:29:27.440 Because right now we have the, uh, the flagship event of, of poker.

00:29:31.700 It's, it's the world series of poker main event.

00:29:33.400 It's the biggest poker tournament that we get every year.

00:29:35.500 It's $10,000 to buy in last year had 10,000 people playing in it.

00:29:38.560 So this is a giant, giant, giant, giant tournament.

00:29:41.460 Um, I don't think it will impact this year because the people going to play don't know if

00:29:47.240 it's going to go through or not yet.

00:29:48.460 Right.

00:29:48.740 So, um, I think where we're, where we will really see this rear its ugly head will be next

00:29:53.700 year at the start where people already know, and the series hasn't begun yet.

00:29:57.840 Um, but yeah, like, like this is the, the biggest event of poker.

00:30:00.800 Maybe it could impact the final day or two.

00:30:02.460 I'm not sure.

00:30:03.380 Um, but yeah, it's going to be tremendous for tournament poker.

00:30:06.100 But, uh, so specifically though, though, I think like two years ago, there was something

00:30:09.300 like close to 11,000 players who each spent 10 grand to enter the main event.

00:30:14.740 And I, I was one of them.

00:30:16.680 Indeed.

00:30:17.280 Uh, I don't actually know the number of, do you, do you know how many people go to, I think

00:30:21.300 it was just over 10,000.

00:30:22.380 I think it was just over 10,000 in total.

00:30:24.780 Like how many people come to Vegas for the world series?

00:30:28.580 I would just, I would guess conservatively about a hundred thousand people, maybe more

00:30:32.740 one 25 come to Vegas over the course of the summer to play.

00:30:35.880 So here's, here's what I think.

00:30:38.460 I think they were trying to find a way to kill Trump's bill.

00:30:41.560 It passed only because of a tiebreaker vote from the vice president.

00:30:44.800 And they did it when one of the biggest gaming events and times of the year is taking place

00:30:51.820 with the world series of poker, specifically in it with a, with a single paragraph that

00:30:56.860 would kill pro poker, aside from all of the gaming industry and fantasy sports, you've

00:31:01.700 got a hundred thousand or so people that have traveled to Vegas for this big event where

00:31:06.540 on the side of, I think it's the horseshoe, right?

00:31:09.060 They have the big WSOP logo and it's a permanent fixture.

00:31:13.340 Sounds to me like it was a strategy.

00:31:15.140 Like they said, how can we cause the biggest problem imaginable for this bill?

00:31:20.060 They put in this one paragraph that gets largely overlooked.

00:31:22.960 People don't understand.

00:31:23.740 Meanwhile, there's a 100,000 players that have just flown to Vegas who are all now hearing

00:31:30.340 about this, who are not political, who I imagine are going to be talking in all of the press

00:31:36.080 around the game with hat, which has millions or tens of millions of viewers.

00:31:39.800 And they're going to say, kill Trump's bill.

00:31:42.120 That does, that does make some sense to me.

00:31:44.540 And I will say like, it's worth noting as well, because I've seen this take, which I think

00:31:48.220 is wrong.

00:31:49.080 People are saying that this is Trump.

00:31:51.460 Trump hates poker.

00:31:52.440 We have no clue who this was.

00:31:54.700 It could have been someone from Trump's team, you know, disseminating it down.

00:31:58.200 It could have been someone from it.

00:31:59.640 We have no idea.

00:32:00.740 We don't know who added it.

00:32:01.700 We don't know why it got added.

00:32:02.820 We don't know any of those things.

00:32:04.160 All we know is it did get added and it got passed in this giant bill.

00:32:07.880 And so that's the political side gamesmanship that I'm totally unfamiliar with.

00:32:12.660 I just know how bad this impact will be.

00:32:15.060 And yeah, maybe this is maybe during one of the biggest gambling event of the year, maybe

00:32:19.500 this will help get the word out to, I don't know, man.

00:32:23.020 Outside my skis now, I don't know.

00:32:24.460 I don't know what to say.

00:32:25.120 That's that's a crazy idea.

00:32:26.620 Well, I'll just I'll just final thought on this.

00:32:29.180 All the poker players want to see Trump's bill dead.

00:32:31.900 Many of them are blaming Trump for it.

00:32:33.720 And if Trump celebrates this victory, there is this is I think what will end up happening

00:32:38.260 is in the midterm elections in contested districts.

00:32:42.080 There are going to be attack ads against Republicans where they say so and so Republican voted against

00:32:47.980 fantasy sports.

00:32:49.140 So and so voted to tax your, you know, your sports gambling, your daily fantasy stuff,

00:32:54.280 because regular middle middle of the road guys, they're playing their fantasy sports on

00:32:59.060 FanDuel or DraftKings or whatever it is they're doing.

00:33:01.200 And they're going to wonder why it is now.

00:33:02.980 It's become an impossible thing to do.

00:33:05.180 But, Doug, I do.

00:33:05.900 I do appreciate you joining and talking about this.

00:33:07.500 Where can people find you?

00:33:08.940 Oh, yeah, you can find me online.

00:33:10.120 Doug Polk poker on YouTube.

00:33:11.520 Do a lot of poker stuff, especially right now.

00:33:13.100 World Series of Poker going on.

00:33:15.020 You know, Lodge Card Club out in Austin or San Antonio, if you're ever in the in the

00:33:18.220 Texas area.

00:33:18.720 And then online at Club WPT Golds, where I play online using code Doug.

00:33:22.520 So appreciate it, Tim.

00:33:23.640 Right on, man.

00:33:24.020 Thanks for joining me.

00:33:24.720 We'll see you next time.

00:33:25.600 Yeah.

00:33:28.320 The famous Doug Polk.

00:33:29.880 He's got a big channel.

00:33:30.740 He's appeared.

00:33:32.020 He's he's one of the one of the biggest pros in the world.

00:33:34.220 I think he's most famous for, you know, online stuff.

00:33:36.440 But I'm going to say it again, because I know, guys, I'm well aware of all the comments

00:33:40.980 saying ban gambling.

00:33:41.960 I don't care.

00:33:42.840 I think that's how they're tricking you.

00:33:44.420 But I could be wrong.

00:33:45.600 Maybe maybe I'm getting all worked up for no reason.

00:33:48.340 And every single Republican is going to fall in line except for Chip Roy and Massey.

00:33:51.720 And this thing passes with the slimmest 218 to, you know, they have to get 218 to pass

00:33:58.560 it, even though there's three vacancies for the Democrat side. 0.85

00:34:02.080 It really feels to me like I got to say, I'm bummed to see Doug Polk say, I hope the

00:34:08.480 bill fails because of how important the bill is for Trump's agenda, particularly around

00:34:15.000 immigration.

00:34:15.920 But I get it.

00:34:17.080 I get it, man.

00:34:18.180 I'm a big fan of the World Series of Poker.

00:34:20.180 I'm a big poker player myself.

00:34:21.540 I'm a big fan.

00:34:23.140 I do think there's a component of chance in gambling.

00:34:25.400 Obviously, I think the argument is fine to have.

00:34:27.960 I'm not a big fan of degenerate over gambling and addiction or alcohol or drugs or any of

00:34:32.040 that stuff.

00:34:32.480 But we're talking about 100,000 people who are flying to Vegas right now for the biggest

00:34:37.540 gambling, gaming event, whatever you want to call it, the tournament, the World Series

00:34:40.960 of Poker, where people dream of entering, where the everyman has a chance if they save

00:34:47.000 up that one time to maybe be the dude who wins the main event, because it's like a 16

00:34:53.560 day long grueling fiasco to try and win this thing.

00:34:56.460 It's a marathon where you're playing for like 16 hours a day.

00:35:00.080 It is a brutal feat of math calculations and outwitting your opponents, and people love

00:35:05.060 it.

00:35:05.860 By all means, say you hate gambling, say you want gambling bad.

00:35:09.940 But understand, this is maybe I'm thinking too conspiratorially, but what I'm asking my

00:35:17.760 team, like, who was the senator who put this in the bill?

00:35:20.380 And the answer is, we don't know.

00:35:22.400 And the staffers don't know either.

00:35:24.400 Someone put it at some point.

00:35:26.360 Someone thought this up.

00:35:27.540 And then you get, you know, Doug Polk, he gets hundreds of thousands of views on his

00:35:32.440 videos saying, and he's not a political guy.

00:35:35.440 He's like, I don't know about politics, man.

00:35:36.780 I hope the bill fails.

00:35:37.940 And I'm like, oh, that's a bummer.

00:35:39.760 Because he even mentioned he's like a pro business right leaning guy, but he's not a

00:35:43.460 political guy.

00:35:44.680 Anything that pulls in normies to get them to blame Trump and sabotage his agenda, to

00:35:50.540 me, sounds like a poison pill.

00:35:51.980 So, but I'm going to wrap it up there, my friends, I'm going to, we're going to gear

00:35:56.020 it up to send this right over to Russell Brand.

00:36:00.560 I believe Russell Brand is gearing up to go live.

00:36:02.680 I always usually just pop over to Rumble and grab that URL for you guys.

00:36:06.920 Yes, Russell Brand is currently live.

00:36:08.660 Let's get that raid going. 1.00

00:36:10.060 Smash the like button.

00:36:11.540 Share the show with everyone you know, my friends.

00:36:13.720 We'll be back tonight at 8 p.m.

00:36:15.580 for Timcast IRL.

00:36:16.880 You don't want to miss it.

00:36:17.260 You can follow me on X and Instagram at Timcast and shout out to Doug.

00:36:22.340 Thanks for joining me.

00:36:23.340 We'll see you all tonight.

00:36:34.100 Beautiful Anonymous changes each week.

00:36:36.500 It defies genres and expectations.

00:36:39.180 For example, our most recent episode, I talked to a woman who survived a murder attempt by her

00:36:43.840 own son.

00:36:44.280 But just the week before that, we just talked the whole time about Star Trek.

00:36:48.380 We've had other recent episodes about sexting in languages that are not your first language

00:36:53.340 or what it's like to get weight loss surgery.

00:36:56.120 It's unpredictable.

00:36:57.320 It's real.

00:36:58.060 It's honest.

00:36:58.840 It's raw.

00:37:00.000 Get Beautiful Anonymous wherever you listen to podcasts.

The Culture War - Tim Pool - July 02, 2025

Trump Bill Will END Fantasy Sports And Pro Poker, POISON PILL Could Ban Gambling And BLOCK Bill

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