Hmm, okay I hadn't thought of it that way. That's interesting to think about.
In practice, to the best of my knowledge you're not allowed to carry gambling losses forward (you can use 'em to reduce your income for the current year but if you lose more than you made you're nevertheless sitting at 0 coming into next year), and since recreational players won't bother to deduct their losses but winning regs do/should pay taxes, I guess it'd be a net plus for the tax man.
However if poker weren't gambling (or whatever, such that you could carry losses forward) and your assumptions above hold, I guess I can't really argue. Interesting.
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