In the past, we've just sent out winning checks to all of our winners, but starting with these next payments we are going to put this prize money in your new Player Accounts and have you tell us what you want to do with it. As soon as these playoff winnings are finalized in the next week, you'll find a Player Account link under your HOME link and there you'll go in and tell us how you want to be paid. Everyone will have to do this to be paid for their playoff winnings.
This function will now allow you to tell us how you want to receive your winnings and how much of your winnings you want in cash. You can tell us to send via direct deposit or via check. You can tell us to send all of it immediately or tell us that you want to keep some or all of it on account for future contests. If you win $10,000 and want to keep $3,000 on account for future NFFC or NFBC signups, we'll do that. This new feature will now allow you to tell us exactly what you want to do with your winnings and we'll take care of that immediately.
Keeping your winnings on account for future signups is meant as a convenience to you. All of the winnings you've earned during the year will still be reported to the IRS whether you cash out or keep some on account. We'd love to play that game where the IRS doesn't tax your winnings until you cash out, but we've thoroughly looked at this and it's just not a legal process. We don't want to get anyone in trouble with the IRS, nor do we have any desire to be put in this position. This is earned income and thus must be reported in full at the end of the year. But if you still want to keep some of your winnings on account and pay for future contests, do so there and we'll send the rest the way you want it.
We'll send out numerous emails and newsletters in the next couple of weeks to everyone to make sure they understand this new process going forward. Again, you'll just have to go to your Player Account when this is live and claim your prize and tell us how you want to be paid. The Player Account will have all kinds of information on there as well, showing you past payments to us, past winnings and more. It will be a nice added feature for our players. Enjoy and again, CONGRATS to all of our winners.
