LOL no.

That's why I don't tip when I go to steakhouses on the LV Strip. I mean, are you kidding me? $65 for a 12 ounce steak? That's highway robbery! And if you want a baked potato or a salad they charge you extra for that!!! If the waiter isn't making enough money he should talk to the owner, not me. Or just take a cut of the $8 they charge for a coffee at the end of the meal.

Of course, I never go back to the same restaurant twice. Don't want my food getting spit on.

Period.

Well, don't you think this is precisely the problem with the tipping culture? You have to worry whenever you go back to that restaurant you love. It just kills both parties. The restaurant loses your business, and you don't get to enjoy the food you love.

But of course after spending 4 years in the USA, I realized tipping is ingrained in the culture here and i really do not expect anything to change.

Kamuz,

So you don’t tip at restaurants?

Now you're making it sound like i am being cheap or worse being a thief, which again is not my point

I do, because i respect the culture here. But i tip accordingly, i.e the attitudes of the servers. I just don't agree with tipping being a good idea in any culture, that's all.

Kamuz,

What about poker dealers? Do you consider them more like restaurants or pit games?

except you're playing against the house where tips are pooled and split evenly among all dealers most of whom suck. if i'm playing you in a game for money and you have the edge i'm not paying your employees unless i have a damb good reason too (ie mistakes or deep pen in blackjack)

lol YES?


??? I'm not sure what point your post is trying to make.

I wasn't the one that documented your tipping practices. That was you.

The point was that your post was bad and fallacious.

His post did nothing but predict what would happen next in this thread.

And he's already partially been proven correct.

More like restaurants i guess. Depends if tips are pooled or not pooled. If its pooled i only tip $1 for pots postflop bigger than 10bb, nothing more. I have tipped green chips before for non-pooled ones.

lol exactly.

You said i dont tip at the roulette table because i can get away with not tipping.
1. This is not true, i am not trying to get away with anything.
2. The reason and the only reason i do not tip at table games is because i have paid enough for the 'service' of watching the ball spin on a wheel and i am not going to contribute another cent for that.

Care to elaborate before I delete all of your recent posts itt?

The post made false conclusions about kamuz reasons for not tipping. Kamuz seemed to handle it just fine so no need for me to continue with it ( which is why I didn't make anymore posts irt the subject).

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions about tipping, and that doesn't give someone else the right to make libelous arguments about why they don't tip.

My own effort to get this back on track:

If you're playing table games against the house, there's an understanding that it's always going to be a -EV play for the customer (card counting notwithstanding).

Therefore, the only reasonable explanation for playing at all is for entertainment purposes. If you're playing roulette or craps with the expectation of consistently making money, you're in delusion. So tipping shouldn't factor into your bottom line. You shouldn't have a bottom line at all. There is no hourly rate. The longer you play the more you'll lose.

So it really comes down to having an entertainment budget. You can budget $100 and lose all of it to the house. Or you can budget $100 and lose $95 to the house and give $5 to the dealers. Either way you're out $100.

As for me, I tend to be even more generous when I'm playing and winning at table games than I would be at a poker table. If I win $1000 playing 2-5 NL over a 4 hour session I might tip somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 to the dealers. If I win $1000 in 30 minutes at a craps table I've likely tipped $100 or more when you factor in the hard way bets that I'm making on behalf of the dealers.

I'm not defending the non-tippers, but I don't think this argument holds water. Presumably they get no entertainment value from tipping the dealers, or they would already be doing it.

I'm not suggesting that you should tip for the entertainment value (although some people probably do tip for that reason). What I am saying is that EV is a non-factor to consider for tipping if you're playing a game that is designed to be -EV for everyone except the house.

When it comes to table games, when I tip it's definitely for entertainment value. I love the feeling of winning big while the dealer is making good money too and there is just that awesome positive vibe going.

That is not really economically sound.

When you look at things from an economic/EV perspective, rather than talk about dollars, you often talk about units of utility instead.

A person who plays a pit game is presumably getting some positive utility from playing it, or else they wouldn't. That utility is a combination of a $ expectation, some measure of entertainment, some amount of endorphins from scratching the gambling addiction itch, plus potentially hundreds of other utility factors (they think they have a shot with the dealer, they like to impress their friends with their ability to bet large, etc etc.).

Thus, even though they might know the game is monetarily EV-, that doesn't mean they are ignoring their overall utility by playing it. It doesn't mean that rationally they should be willing to tip, or should/will/must ignore the additional EV/utility implications that occur as a result of doing so.

It is entirely possible that "having" to tip would push a game from positive utility to negative utility for a given person, and would stop them from doing it. Having said that, I doubt it would for most people.

In summary, the people who play ($) EV- games aren't ignoring EV, exactly, they are playing a game which gives them (utility) EV+ in dimensions you just aren't considering, and tipping will certainly be a part of that equation.

If overall EV was a consideration, they'd come to the realization that they'd be better off just skipping the casino and dropping the money off in a charity jar, but any money not given to charity is money that can extend their entertainment (i.e., chances of winning money) at the tables. In the grand scheme of things, the dealer is equivalent to the charity jar.

I love this post.

It's probably not sensible to calculate Benthamite utility for folks showing up to the casino just to gamble on some longshots, but it helps remind us that they aren't stupid or even necessarily irrational.

Well that sure SHUT HER UP. Also, you just posted two completely different descriptions of the same interaction with the poor roulette lady.