May be wasting my time here or someone may have addressed this, so sorry in advance.

But if you bring $1000 to the table and leave with $1000 then you have not won anything, so why are you taxed 50% on the original amount?  Should you not be taxed on cashing out anything over and above your original buy in?

If thats just prison rules ie, its prison thats how it rolls. Then all good.  Otherwise its just not logical. 50% tax on winning should mean ''winning's''. You didnt win what you brought to the table.

Just saying.