Is Massachusetts Insane?

[toppled]

They have a new law that I just heard about on At The Races this morning.  If any bet pays over $600, they take out 5% and (I\'m not sure about this part) possibly make you fill out a tax form.  In addition, Massachusetts residents are not permitted to offset gambling winnings with gambling losses on their tax returns, meaning they\'ll be taxed 5% on any wager that returns over $600 and have no recourse to get the money back. To put this in perspective, if someone bet $100 on Orb in the Derby, instead of getting back $640, in Massachusetts (if the law was there last month) $32 would have gone to the state-never to be seen again.
 
Now I live in NYS, where if you go to the local OTB they\'re doing the same thing or worse- (6% on multi horse bets) on every single winning bet and with the exception of NYCOTB all the other OTBs are still in business.  Of course, I\'m able to avoid the OTB surcharge by either having over $300 in my OTB phone account, betting on-line from OTB, or spending $1 and betting at the Albany Clubhouse Racebook (I\'m over 55, otherwise it\'s $2).  If NYS ever pulled what Massachusetts did, I\'d never go to Saratoga again & would either get an account that NYS couldn\'t tax or give up gambling

http://www.paulickreport.com/news/ray-s-paddock/horseplayers-irate-over-new-massachusetts-gambling-tax/

Edit: The link wasn\'t working right when I posted, I think I fixed it where it now works.