OBC Gambling Question

[Veranda View II]

I have seen on another thread that I am able to use my OBC in the casino. I have also seen that you cannot take any OBC home with you. If you were lucky enough to win big how would you be able to bring the money you won home with you?  

[jwattle]

Cash out when you're done playing.

[booklady26]

Unlike most other casinos (land based or on a ship), Princess slot machines do not issue tickets when you cash out. If you're lucky to have money left, it goes into your account. You can cash it out at the cashier window at any time. 

[Musky Ike]

1 minute ago, Veranda View II said:

I have seen on another thread that I am able to use my OBC in the casino. I have also seen that you cannot take any OBC home with you. If you were lucky enough to win big how would you be able to bring the money you won home with you?  

Yes,  you can transfer money from you cruise account to your casino account to play. Before the end of your cruise if you are fortunate to have some remaining, cash out your casino account at the casino cage. They will give you cash in the hundreds if you are lucky. Unfortunately I don't  have any first hand experience with really huge wins 😁. But I believe that like land based casinos, they will hold some back for taxes.

[Genessa]

55 minutes ago, Veranda View II said:

I have seen on another thread that I am able to use my OBC in the casino. I have also seen that you cannot take any OBC home with you. If you were lucky enough to win big how would you be able to bring the money you won home with you?  

 

 

my experience,

 

If you have $200 in onboard credit and go into the casino and charge $100 to your room and play with it and win, you will upload those winnings to your card or get chips that you turn in 

 

you will now still have $100 in OBC but when you go to cash in winnings if you are lucky, you will get them in cash 

 

 

if you upload the whole $200 at once and win, you still get to keep all your winnings, provided a single win doesn’t go over the taxable limit 

 

not sure what happens with table games, but if you hit a slot jackpot over (it was $1200, but not sure what it will be) a set amount you will have to fill out a tax form there. 
not sure if they will take out the taxes or not, do used to be lucky, I am not 

 

if you are playing slots and your credit in the machine is getting up there, load it onto your card and then keep playing if you want 

 

 

 

 

 

[memoak]

They will cash out in the thousands if you win enough. My wife cashed out well over a thousand late last year. If you have a single silt win that calls for taxes you will get the total in cash but they will hand you a 1099 you will have to declare. These are based on past experiences 

[voljeep]

16 minutes ago, memoak said:

They will cash out in the thousands if you win enough. My wife cashed out well over a thousand late last year. If you have a single silt win that calls for taxes you will get the total in cash but they will hand you a 1099 you will have to declare. These are based on past experiences 

W-2 G

[eclue]

2 hours ago, Musky Ike said:

Yes,  you can transfer money from you cruise account to your casino account to play. Before the end of your cruise if you are fortunate to have some remaining, cash out your casino account at the casino cage. They will give you cash in the hundreds if you are lucky. Unfortunately I don't  have any first hand experience with really huge wins 😁. But I believe that like land based casinos, they will hold some back for taxes.

They will hand you the cash and a few weeks later you will get your W-2G form from Carnival Corporation in the mail. I have been pretty lucky the past few trips . No money withheld for taxes....

 

[voljeep]

16 minutes ago, eclue said:

They will hand you the cash and a few weeks later you will get your W-2G form from Carnival Corporation in the mail. I have been pretty lucky the past few trips . No money withheld for taxes....

 

which only means you get to pay the full amount of taxes when you file your return 😉

[skynight]

My experience is:

Table games: Place the medallion on the table and ask for the amount you want to be charged to your onboard account. Example $200. There will be a $200 charge on your account which will net against any debit or credit (OBC) balance. Play with the chips. When finished either bring the chips to the cashier to receive cash or carry the chips back to your cabin for future use.

Slots: Place your medallion in the designated spot on the machine. Set up a casino account and pin. Select amount to be charged to your on board account. Same as table games the amount will net against any debit or credit (OBC) balance. When finished play if you walk away your casino account balance will remain until your next play. You can also visit the cashier to cash out by handing the cashier your medallion and entering your pin. The cashier will give you cash.

In both cases remember to cash out your casino account or your chips before closing on the last night of the voyage.

Important note. In both cases you must play. You can not use the casino as an ATM.

[memoak]

1 hour ago, skynight said:

My experience is:

Table games: Place the medallion on the table and ask for the amount you want to be charged to your onboard account. Example $200. There will be a $200 charge on your account which will net against any debit or credit (OBC) balance. Play with the chips. When finished either bring the chips to the cashier to receive cash or carry the chips back to your cabin for future use.

Slots: Place your medallion in the designated spot on the machine. Set up a casino account and pin. Select amount to be charged to your on board account. Same as table games the amount will net against any debit or credit (OBC) balance. When finished play if you walk away your casino account balance will remain until your next play. You can also visit the cashier to cash out by handing the cashier your medallion and entering your pin. The cashier will give you cash.

In both cases remember to cash out your casino account or your chips before closing on the last night of the voyage.

Important note. In both cases you must play. You can not use the casino as an ATM.

On some cruises you may need to cash out prior to your last night. Example Alaskan cruises where the last night is in Victoria where the casino will not be open. They will make announcements fairly often near the end of the cruise. If you do not cash out you will have to request it from the casino department and it will take time to get your check. We ended a cruise in covid jail and it took around a month to get the money

[negn]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

which only means you get to pay the full amount of taxes when you file your return 😉

And you can off set that by declaring your losses

[eclue]

3 hours ago, voljeep said:

which only means you get to pay the full amount of taxes when you file your return 😉

We always request a win/loss statement for the year - it seems to work out well.

[roxievegas]

4 hours ago, voljeep said:

which only means you get to pay the full amount of taxes when you file your return 😉

you offset your winnings with your losses

[Hlitner]

2 hours ago, roxievegas said:

you offset your winnings with your losses

With 10s of thousands or new IRS Agents you should keep in mind that you need to keep records/proof of your gambling loses.  The extent of this proof is open to interpretation by IRS.  If you get nailed for an audit you might find that those gambling loses were hardly worth the hassle.  Audits are no fun.

 

Hank

[voljeep]

14 hours ago, negn said:

And you can off set that by declaring your losses

 

12 hours ago, roxievegas said:

you offset your winnings with your losses

'if' you itemize deductions

[Veranda View II]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to explain how the OBC works and other interesting info.

[roxievegas]

11 hours ago, Hlitner said:

With 10s of thousands or new IRS Agents you should keep in mind that you need to keep records/proof of your gambling loses.  The extent of this proof is open to interpretation by IRS.  If you get nailed for an audit you might find that those gambling loses were hardly worth the hassle.  Audits are no fun.

 

Hank

you order win/loss records from the casinos that you have gambled at - including the cruise ship.  You can only write off the amount of the win for the losses

 

ie: if you get a 1099-G for $2,000 and you have records to show that you had lost $3,000 you can only write off $2,000.

[Hlitner]

23 minutes ago, roxievegas said:

you order win/loss records from the casinos that you have gambled at - including the cruise ship.  You can only write off the amount of the win for the losses

 

ie: if you get a 1099-G for $2,000 and you have records to show that you had lost $3,000 you can only write off $2,000.

In many cases, the casinos have no record of losses.  For folks that play table games, being tracked for both wins/losses is just not done in many casinos.  An IRS auditor can simply ask you to provide documentation of any losses (you claim against winnings).  We know folks who spend a lot of money playing lotteries, and they do keep all their tickets as proof.  But if you are playing Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, etc. providing adequate proof can be difficult.  Another unfortunate problem for gamblers is that IRS does not even need to assign people resources (i,.e. agents) to make a gamblers life miserable.  A simple computerized "Dear Taxpayer" letter (spit out by a computer program) is all it takes.  

 

Hank

[voljeep]

3 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

In many cases, the casinos have no record of losses.  For folks that play table games, being tracked for both wins/losses is just not done in many casinos.  An IRS auditor can simply ask you to provide documentation of any losses (you claim against winnings).  We know folks who spend a lot of money playing lotteries, and they do keep all their tickets as proof.  But if you are playing Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, etc. providing adequate proof can be difficult.  Another unfortunate problem for gamblers is that IRS does not even need to assign people resources (i,.e. agents) to make a gamblers life miserable.  A simple computerized "Dear Taxpayer" letter (spit out by a computer program) is all it takes.  

 

Hank

'large' gambling losses included in itemized deductions, is a definite marker aka red flag, for additional documentation.

 

and it's a W-2G - not 1099-G ( gov payouts )

[wannagonow123]

A small note to this..... if you charge money to your room to use up OBC on slots, you must play at least $5 before you cash off that machine. Otherwise the system thinks you are using the machine as an ATM and it will freeze your account.

[roxievegas]

20 minutes ago, wannagonow123 said:

A small note to this..... if you charge money to your room to use up OBC on slots, you must play at least $5 before you cash off that machine. Otherwise the system thinks you are using the machine as an ATM and it will freeze your account.

I don't agree with this.  We usually have OBC of $200.  We go to a machine, and charge $200 to our cabin  This 200 is now in your bank.  You can gamble $10 and "cash out" of that machine.  You do not get cash, get goes back to your bank, so you now have $190 in your bank.  You go to another machine and use your bank to put money on that machine.  I have never had my account frozen due to playing less than $5 on the machine.

[Bobbiegentry]

Enough, please!!!

[Alaska Lily]

Enough?? I personally find this all very interesting.

[rich_cathybrock]

I think this is interesting, too. 

 

Can someone clarify:  If I buy $1500 worth of OBC before I cruise, I can use that OBC in the casino before I run up a bill against my cc on file?

 

I ask because some cruise lines charge a credit card fee (up to 8%) to add cash to your account against your credit card onboard (other than for their Hosted guests, who of course have the requisite win/loss statements!🤪). 

 

I prefer not to get hit with a fee, so if I can use the pre-purchased OBC, I will.  Am I correct in assuming that can be done?

 

Thanks all!