Gambling winnings tax in New Jersey

New Jersey lets you deduct gambling losses up to the amount you won and no further.

Checked against New Jersey’s own sources on 2026-09-25.

In short

A win that takes your gross income over $10,000, or $20,000 on a joint, head of household or surviving spouse return, makes you owe New Jersey tax on the whole of your income, not only the part above the line.7, 6
New Jersey Lottery prizes of $10,000 or less are not taxed. The $10,000 applies to the whole prize, not to your share of it.
Lottery winnings from outside New Jersey are taxable at any amount.5
A casino letter that rates or estimates your play is not enough on its own to prove your losses.8

How New Jersey treats gambling losses

New Jersey does not tie the deduction to your federal itemizing choice, so a filer who takes the federal standard deduction gets the same offset as one who itemizes.

The two examples below are the same numbers the calculator uses, worked at New Jersey rates.

Two examples, worked at 2026 New Jersey rates

A single filer with $60,000 of other income who takes the standard deduction on everything except gambling losses.

A losing year

You win $50,000 and lose $52,000, so you finish down $2,000.

Federal: $3,596
New Jersey: $0
Total: $3,596

You finished the year down and still owe tax.

Federally you itemize, so your losses offset your winnings, but the 2026 rule caps that deduction at 90 percent and leaves $3,200 taxable. New Jersey lets you deduct losses up to the amount you won and no further, so none of it is taxed by New Jersey.

A winning year

You win $50,000 and lose $10,000, so you finish up $40,000.

Federal: $10,350
New Jersey: $2,421
Total: $12,771

Federally you take the $16,100 standard deduction, which is worth more than itemizing, so your gambling losses do not reduce your federal tax at all. New Jersey lets you deduct losses up to the amount you won and no further, so $40,000 is taxed at graduated rates, which comes to $2,421.

New Jersey income tax rates, 2026

5, 6

Single filer thresholds. Married filing jointly and head of household use different bands. Married filing separately uses the single bands.

Taxable income	Rate
$0 to $20,000	1.4 percent
$20,000 to $35,000	1.75 percent
$35,000 to $40,000	3.5 percent
$40,000 to $75,000	5.525 percent
$75,000 to $500,000	6.37 percent
$500,000 to $1,000,000	8.97 percent
$1,000,000 and above	10.75 percent

The calculator also applies what this table leaves out: no tax at all at low income.

Withholding on winnings

8, 10

New Jersey withholds 3 percent unless a line below gives another rate. The payout that triggers it depends on the wager, and the lowest trigger is $1,000. The rules in the state's sources:

other lotteries, sweepstakes and wagering pools: above $1,000 (sweepstakes, wagering pools and lotteries other than the New Jersey Lottery).
pari-mutuel wagering, other wagers and sports wagering: above $1,000, and only where the payout is at least 300 times the stake.
the state lottery: above $10,000, at 5 percent (on the whole payout, or at 8 percent where the winner gives no taxpayer identification number).
the state lottery: above $500,000, at 8 percent.
slot machines, keno and bingo: nothing is withheld, at any amount.

These sources give no rule for other kinds of bet, so do not assume tax was withheld on one.

Form GMB-5 still gives 3 percent for New Jersey Lottery prizes. Technical Bulletin TB-20(R) sets 5 and 8 percent for them from July 1, 2016, and this page follows it.

Withholding is a credit against the bill, not the bill itself. It does not settle what you owe.

The federal 90 percent loss limit in New Jersey

9, 11

From tax year 2026 the federal deduction for gambling losses is cut to 90 percent of what you lost, and never more than what you won. Public Law 119-21 did it, at section 70114(a), by rewriting 26 U.S.C. 165(d).

New Jersey does not apply the federal 90 percent limit, so a loss deduction on your state return is not cut to 90 percent.

New Jersey does not start from the federal code. The paragraph above says what this means for the federal 90 percent limit.

If you do not live in New Jersey

New Jersey taxes nonresidents on New Jersey source gambling winnings. A nonresident may offset them only with losses incurred in New Jersey in the same period.

The calculator works the bill for somebody who lives in New Jersey. It does not apportion income between states, so a nonresident return is not what the figure above describes.

More about New Jersey

Who owes no tax

New Jersey charges no tax at all if your gross income is $10,000 or less, or $20,000 on a joint, head of household or surviving spouse return. If a win takes your income over that line, you owe tax on the whole of your income, not only the part above the line.7, 6

Lottery prizes

New Jersey Lottery prizes of $10,000 or less are not taxed. The $10,000 applies to the whole prize, not to each winner’s share, so if you split a prize above $10,000, your share is still taxable.

Lottery winnings from outside New Jersey are taxable at any amount.5

Proving your losses

A casino letter that rates or estimates your play is not enough on its own to prove your losses.8

Rates and exemptions

New Jersey rates are set by statute and do not change with inflation, so the 2026 rates are the same as the 2025 rates.

New Jersey has exemptions of $1,000 for each spouse, and more for age, blindness, veterans and dependents.

About this estimate

If you are 65 or older, the calculator takes off New Jersey’s $1,000 exemption for each person 65 or older. It leaves out the other exemptions and the retirement income exclusions.

The calculator does not include the other exemptions. So for a filer under 62, when a win takes your income over the no-tax line, the estimate is high by the exemptions times the top rate the win reaches. That is about $14 for a single filer at 1.4 percent, $28 on a joint return, and up to $107.50 for a single filer with a very large win.

From 62, if your wages and business income are $3,000 or less, New Jersey lets you exclude other income, gambling winnings included, up to $75,000 single or head of household, $100,000 joint or $50,000 separate. The maximum shrinks over $100,000 of total income and ends over $150,000. The calculator leaves this out. Under $100,000 the estimate can be too high, and a win that crosses $100,000, $125,000 or $150,000 can cost thousands more than shown. At 65 or older a warning says which applies.

Sources

Every figure above traces to a primary source: a statute, an administrative code, a state agency page, or official form instructions.

1. NJ-1040 instructions (2025), line 28b and Worksheet D: the other retirement income exclusion at 62 or older, its maximums by line 27 income, and the $3,000 test on wages and business income (checked 2026-10-12)
2. N.J.S. 54A:6-15 as reprinted in S982 of 2026: the other retirement income exclusion at 62 or older, its maximums, the 37.5 and 18.75 percent steps over $100,000 and $125,000, and none over $150,000 (checked 2026-10-12)
3. NJ-1040 instructions (2025), line 28b: the other retirement income exclusion at 62 or older, used against any income on line 27 (checked 2026-10-12)
4. Form NJ-1040-ES (2026) instructions: an additional $1,000 each for a taxpayer, and a spouse filing jointly, who is 65 or older (checked 2026-10-12)
5. NJ-1040 instructions (2025), tax rate schedules and line 24 (checked 2026-09-11)
6. Form NJ-1040-ES (2026) instructions, Tables A and B rate schedules and the minimum income filing threshold (checked 2026-09-25)
7. N.J.S. 54A:2-4, minimum taxable income (cf: P.L.1999, c.260, s.1), as quoted in Assembly bill A2442 (2026). The indexing that the bill proposes is not law (checked 2026-09-25)
8. Technical Bulletin TB-20(R), gambling winnings (checked 2026-10-11)
9. NJ Division of Taxation, One Big Beautiful Bill Act guidance for individuals (checked 2026-09-11)
10. Form GMB-5, gambling withholding instructions (checked 2026-10-11)

The federal rule, for the parts of this page that rest on it

11. Public Law 119-21 section 70114(a), which rewrote 26 U.S.C. 165(d) on wagering losses from tax year 2026 and sets out its text (checked 2026-10-18)

We could not confirm these from an official source: whether any city or county tax applies.