Are gambling change persons and booth cashiers tips tax deductible in 2026?
Yes — gambling change persons and booth cashiers are on the IRS tipped occupation list (code 202). Tips in this job are deductible for 2026, up to $25,000, if the customer chose the amount and could have declined.
Treasury Tipped Occupation Code 202 · Entertainment and events · official title: Gambling Change Persons and Booth Cashiers
How tipping works in this job
The reliable tipping moment is the hand pay: a jackpot over the reporting threshold has to be paid manually, and the attendant who walks over with the paperwork is very often tipped a percentage on the spot. Beyond that, tipping is thin and sporadic. Many properties pool slot-attendant tokes in the same way they pool dealer tokes.
The regulations say: Exchange coins, tokens, and chips for patrons’ money. May issue payoffs and obtain customer’s signature on receipt. May operate a booth in the slot machine area and furnish change persons with money bank at the start of the shift, or count and audit money in drawers. Examples given: Slot attendant, mutuel teller.
The thing most likely to disqualify your tips
Assuming a jackpot tip is always cash in your pocket. Where the property pools attendant tokes, the winner’s $100 goes into the pool and you receive a share — so the qualifying figure is your distribution, not what the guest handed you at the machine.
Check your own numbers
Pre-filled for gambling change persons and booth cashiers. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
Step 1 — your occupation
Checking for Gambling change persons and booth cashiers (Treasury code 202). This occupation is on the list.
Step 2 — is it actually a tip?
Answer for the money you are asking about. If some of your income is tips and some is service charges, run them separately.
Step 3 — your tips and income
The phase-out runs on modified AGI, which for most people is the same as AGI.
3 questions left to answer.
OBBBA Deductions · obbbadeductions.com
Tips deduction worksheet — tax year 2026
The three tests, as answered
- Does the customer decide the amount? not answered
- Can the customer decline to pay it? not answered
- Is it a mandatory service charge or auto-gratuity? not answered
Answer the 3 remaining questions above for a result.
Watch out for this in your job: Assuming a jackpot tip is always cash in your pocket. Where the property pools attendant tokes, the winner’s $100 goes into the pool and you receive a share — so the qualifying figure is your distribution, not what the guest handed you at the machine.
Educational estimate only, not tax advice. It runs entirely in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere. The deduction is scheduled to expire after tax year 2028.
How this applies to gambling change persons and booth cashiers
The hand pay is the tipping event that defines this job. A slot jackpot at or above the reporting threshold cannot be paid by the machine — an attendant has to walk over, verify it, produce a W-2G, and count out the money. That interaction is the moment a slot attendant gets tipped, and because it attaches to a large sum the amounts are correspondingly larger than anything else on a casino floor outside the pit.
The convention is a percentage of the jackpot, and it varies enormously with the player. Some tip a flat amount, some work to a rough half or one percent, some tip nothing at all. What is consistent is the shape: infrequent, unpredictable, and concentrated. An attendant might handle only a handful of large hand pays in a month and take more from those than from every other interaction combined. Because the money often comes straight out of the payout envelope the player has just been counted, it is unambiguously theirs to give and unambiguously voluntary.
Where it goes next depends on the property. Many casinos pool attendant tokes exactly as they pool dealer tokes, so the $200 a winner presses into your hand at the machine becomes a share of a shift total rather than yours outright. That is not a problem for the deduction — a pooled distribution is still a tip — but it does mean the figure you can claim is the payroll distribution, not the amount you remember being handed.
Straight change and booth work generates very little by comparison. Making change, filling banks and running a coin booth are service tasks that customers do not associate with tipping, and expectations should be set accordingly when estimating a year.
The three tests, whatever your job
Paid voluntarily
The customer sets the amount and can decline to pay it.
Paid in cash or a cash equivalent
Card payments and mobile payments count.
Received directly or through a tip pool
Both routes qualify.
Questions
- Are gambling change persons and booth cashiers on the IRS tipped occupation list?
- Yes. Gambling Change Persons and Booth Cashiers is Treasury Tipped Occupation Code 202, in the entertainment and events category. The regulations describe it as: Exchange coins, tokens, and chips for patrons’ money. May issue payoffs and obtain customer’s signature on receipt. May operate a booth in the slot machine area and furnish change persons with money bank at the start of the shift, or count and audit money in drawers.
- What is the most common reason gambling change persons and booth cashiers lose the deduction?
- Assuming a jackpot tip is always cash in your pocket. Where the property pools attendant tokes, the winner’s $100 goes into the pool and you receive a share — so the qualifying figure is your distribution, not what the guest handed you at the machine.
- How much of my tips can I deduct?
- Up to $25,000 per return, whatever your filing status. The cap applies first, then the amount is reduced by $100 for every $1,000 of modified adjusted gross income above the threshold for your filing status.
- Does a mandatory service charge count as a tip?
- No. A mandatory service charge or automatic gratuity is not a qualifying tip, and the final regulations confirmed this explicitly. It does not qualify even when the customer cannot decline it — a qualifying tip has to be an amount the customer chose to give.
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Occupation data transcribed from T.D. 10044 — final regulations on occupations that customarily and regularly received tips, Treas. Reg. § 1.224-1(h) table 1, last verified 2026-09-08. Read the regulations.