Poker Pro Seidel: Dana White ‘Important Voice’ In Effort To Undo Deduction Cap

It’s anybody’s guess whether Dana White has read the work of Dale Carnegie, but there’s no doubt the UFC president and CEO is adept at winning friends and influencing people. And the gambling community is very much hoping White will succeed in putting those skills to use with regard to his most famous (and sometimes easily influenced) friend.

White sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Monday, as first reported and shared publicly Wednesday by gambling industry journalist Dustin Gouker. White implored Trump to reverse a section of the 2025 legislation referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that caps gamblers’ tax deductions on losses at 90%. This rule, which takes effect with 2026 taxes due next April, would present a situation where gamblers could come out slightly ahead and owe an amount greater than their net winnings, or even finish the year behind on their play and nevertheless owe the government money.

The professional poker community has been particularly up in arms about the deduction cap since it was introduced, and 10-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Erik Seidel, a Poker Hall of Famer and one the most decorated tournament players of all time, told CNBC last month that he’d greatly curtailed his poker play due to this “devastating” new rule.

But Seidel is feeling decidedly better at the moment thanks to White’s letter.

“I thought the letter was nicely written and Dana covered the issues well, and he’s an important voice because he is friendly with Trump,” Seidel told Casino Reports. “I think people understand the importance of it because we see the way things work with Trump. Dana’s one of the people that’s in his circle and is somebody that could impact legislation.

“The tax change makes no sense at all,” Seidel continued. “It’s never happened to anyone in history that they had to pay taxes on money they didn’t make. So I’ve expected from the start that it would be overturned eventually, because it just makes no sense. But, who knows when — it could be months, it could be years. So I think that having Dana speak up is very important.”

Moving the needle on Kalshi?

In his letter, White appealed to the president’s ego with praise for the OBBBA and the state of the economy under Trump. He noted toward the end of the letter, “You’ve always stood up for fighters, fans, and American businesses.” White made the case that the 90% deduction cap undoes some of the good of Trump’s “signature policy” to not tax tips and that it “has knock-on effects for businesses like mine,” saying the new rules will drive sports bettors to unregulated markets, which is a negative for the integrity of UFC bouts.

On prediction market Kalshi, the impact of the White letter is evident — if not to the extreme degree Seidel and other gamblers might have hoped for.

On Monday and Tuesday, before there was public knowledge of the letter, a market for “Will the cap on gambling loss reduction be repealed?” (one presumes Kalshi meant “deduction,” not “reduction”) was tracking between 15% and 19.1% for a “yes” before 2027. On Wednesday, that number shot up as high as 37.6%, before coming back down Thursday to 29%, where it remained as of press time Friday morning.

Seidel’s best guess as to why the optimism seems tempered in prediction market trading is that people are wary of the process required to undo legislation. “I know that there are barriers to getting it through. It’s just not so simple,” Seidel said. “But I feel like if Trump wanted it to happen, it could happen very quickly. I’m surprised the odds are so low.”

UFC has an event scheduled to take place on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14, evidence of the cozy relationship between Trump and White (who spoke at both the 2020 and 2024 Republican National Conventions). The event could factor into the timing of if and when Trump seeks to reverse the tax deduction rule, as if he’s going to fulfill White’s request, logic dictates he’d be moved to get that ball rolling before hosting the UFC.

Seidel is not on the same side of the political fence as Trump and White, but he’d be happy to see the 90% cap undone by any means necessary.

“I don’t really have any mixed feelings about where this is coming from,” Seidel said. “We’ll take it from wherever it comes. It’s ridiculous that it happened in the first place, but it needs to be reversed, and it is a bipartisan issue — there are people on both sides that understand how unfair the tax is and the negative implications of it.” 

OBBBA, AGA, WSOP

The American Gaming Association’s reaction to the White letter echoes Seidel’s.

“Restoring the 100 percent gambling loss deduction remains a top priority for the AGA, and we continue to actively engage with Congress and the administration to support a legislative solution,” read the statement the AGA issued Wednesday. “We appreciate Dana White helping raise awareness about the negative impacts this issue has not only on bettors, but also on businesses and jobs connected to the legal gaming ecosystem.”

Seidel is a sample size of just one veteran poker pro, but the impact on him from the threat of this tax hit is considerable.

“I have not been playing that many buy-ins that are $10K or higher, and I haven’t been traveling [to play] much,” Seidel, normally a regular on the high-roller circuit, said of his activity thus far in 2026. “The World Series, we’ll see. I feel like I will still want to play a decent schedule there. But outside of that, it just doesn’t make much sense to me to play in the high-rollers.

“I mean, personally, for me, it’s not the worst thing, taking a pause and having a little bit more time off, doing some traveling,” said the 66-year-old Seidel. “But for our community, it’s a huge problem. It has already had a major effect.”