Rep Dina Titus gains momentum on FAIR BET Act as Republican Tom Cole backs gambling tax

Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada said on Thursday (January 8) that her gambling tax reform bill, the FAIR BET Act, is picking up steam, after House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole signed on as a co-sponsor.

In a post on X, the Democratic lawmaker said, “Exciting news for the #FAIRBETAct and the gaming community. The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, @TomColeOK04, has just co-sponsored my legislation to rightfully restore the tax code for gamers. Nobody should have to pay taxes on phantom income. Let’s get this done.”

Exciting news for the #FAIRBETAct and the gaming community. The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, @TomColeOK04, has just co-sponsored my legislation to rightfully restore the tax code for gamers.

Nobody should have to pay taxes on phantom income. Let’s get this…

— Dina Titus (@repdinatitus) January 8, 2026

FAIR BET Act introduced in reaction to Trump’s OBBBA bill

The FAIR BET Act, short for the Fair Accounting for Income Realized from Betting Earnings Taxation Act, would bring back a long-standing tax rule that lets gamblers deduct all of their losses from their winnings when figuring out what they owe. That changed in 2025 under President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which capped those deductions at 90%.

Under the current law, someone who wins $100,000 but also loses $100,000 would still be taxed on $10,000, even though they didn’t actually make any money. Critics say that amounts to taxing losses and skews how gambling income is supposed to be reported.

Titus, who represents Nevada’s gaming-heavy 1st Congressional District, has made rolling back the cap a top priority. When she introduced the FAIR BET Act in July 2025, she called it a “common-sense fix” to what she described as a badly designed and harmful tax change.

In an interview on NewsNation’s The Hill last year, Titus warned the change could have broader consequences beyond individual gamblers. “It pushes people into the black market if they don’t do regulated gaming, because they have a tax disadvantage, and the black market doesn’t pay taxes, isn’t regulated, doesn’t help with problem gaming. So it’s bad for the industry as well as for the player,” she said.

Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law on July 4, 2025. It was a massive budget package that extended parts of the 2017 tax cuts, cut Medicaid spending, changed how Social Security taxes work, and made a long list of other fiscal tweaks. It passed the House by a razor-thin 218–214 vote, with every Democrat and two Republicans voting no, and it’s expected to add about $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

Titus has needed a co-sponsor for the FAIR BET Act

Once the gambling tax change kicked in, Titus started pressing the House Ways and Means Committee to move her bill forward. In a public letter sent in December 2025 to Committee Chair Jason Smith and Ranking Member Richard Neal, she wrote, “Now is the time to fix the unfair 90 percent tax deduction for gambling losses that negatively impacts professional and casual players.”

She’s argued that the current law ends up taxing money gamblers never really made and could push players toward offshore or unregulated betting sites. In that same correspondence, Titus said the policy shift “unfairly burdens professional gamblers and casual players alike and will inevitably drive players toward offshore and unregulated markets where consumer protections are nonexistent, thereby undermining responsible gaming efforts nationwide.”

Titus also tried to tack the bill onto the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, but the Republican-led House Rules Committee wouldn’t allow the amendment. “Unfortunately, the GOP-controlled Rules Committee did not accept the FAIR BET Act as an amendment to the NDAA,” she said at the time. “This was an easy fix that should have been adopted. Nonetheless, I will continue to build support to restore the 100 percent gambling loss deduction.”

Today I am urging @WaysMeansCmte Chairman @RepJasonSmith to place the FAIR BET Act on the committee calendar. Now is the time to fix the unfair 90% tax deduction for gambling losses that negatively impacts professional and casual players. See my full letter to the Chairman below. pic.twitter.com/JJUozMnPTu

— Dina Titus (@repdinatitus) December 11, 2025

Cole signing on as a co-sponsor of the FAIR BET Act is a big step as it could give the proposal a boost in a divided Congress. The bill still has a tough road ahead in the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, but supporters say the bipartisan support shows there’s growing awareness that the current deduction cap is creating real problems for both gamblers and the gaming industry.

For Titus, the goal remains restoring what she calls a fairer system that reflects actual net income. As she put it in her recent post, the issue comes down to a simple principle: “Nobody should have to pay taxes on phantom income.”

Featured image: Dina Titus on X / Tom Cole via X

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