Although I've been to casinos and played some pit games in the past, I have yet to go and play poker, at some point in the future I should be taking a trip when I have several hours to dedicate to it.

Anyway here's the question, I know casinos require you to fill out a tax form if your winnings exceed a certian amount form any pit games or slots. Does ths also apply to poker or no? The only reason I ask is one payment comes directly from the casino and naturally they're required to keep track of everything that comes in and goes out. However the poker games any profits come from the players not the house.

Just wondering if they do the same thing by keeping track of what you buy in for vs. cashing out, or something to that effect?

Many places are just tracking your cash transactions, not reporting income. Any transaction or series of transactions in cash over 10k in a 24 hr period must be reported to the service. It is to prevent money laundering, not to capture unreported income.

I don't know about how other casino's do it, but at Caesars Palace if you cash out over $700 in a tourney you have to do the tax thing. Anything under that and no.

Well I would assume the tourneys are different, since the $ is getting paid out by the casino. They're taking "x" amount in before the tournament and paying "x" amount out afterwards, so they'd probably need to keep some type of records for that.

In a ring game like you guys said nothing is really coming out of the casino per say. It's all going between players.