I seriously doubt that any agency would ever know.

The IRS discovers you owe them taxes in two ways. 1) Another entity files a form with the IRS and it differs from your tax return. For example, your company files a W2 with the IRS, and if the amount doesn't match your declared income on your tax return, then the IRS will know. As far as I know, no gaming site or neteller is going to submit any such "form". 2) The IRS decides to audit you and looks closely at your bank statements. If they see large inflows, they could question that its income from an undeclared source. Of course, you would have to get audited first (very, very slim chance relative to the overall population) AND the IRS would have to question your bank statements (they might not get too pickey as $10k is allowed tax free as a gift).

All in all, if you are not a professional player and not filing a return with that has your occupation as a professional poker player, I think the chances the IRS will crack down on you are very slim.

Of course, I'm not an accountant or an attorney and don't have any expertise on these matters other than having dealt with the IRS in the past in my life as a consultant.

The way that the service finds out about income is that the taxpayer reports it, a third party files a W-2, W-2G, or 1099 (among a host of other forms, these are the most common), or it is discovered during an audit.

As an aside - An unlimited amount is allowed tax free as a gift to the recipient. Any amount over the annual exemption (currently $11,000 IIRC and indexed for inflation) must be reported by the giver of the gift on a gift tax return, and counts against a lifetime maximum gift tax exemption. If the lifetime exemption is exceeded, it is the person giving the gift that has the tax liability.

It is clearly techonlogically possible for the service to discover who is an internet poker player by requesting information from ISPs. Maybe under the Patriot Act, and maybe your ISP is just willing to give you up. Maybe your bank will report suspicious activities (deposits and withdrawals) to the fraud detection unit of your local authorities and the IRS gets hold of that information and starts snooping around. They probably have other ways. The government's powers of observation and information gathering are scary. Just hope that Iceman and/or Tetsuo don't receive a subpoena for member records and ISP addresses. Yikes.

Tax evasion is a felony.

Use a neteller debit card to withdraw funds so they don't go into the bank? I know the withdrawal fees are pricey, but more than taxes?

But, anyway, dunno.

Molina