Just curious - I always thought this was a black or white issue, where rooms that serve food/drinks either allow it to be paid from via chips from a player's stack or not, and there were no limits on how much/often one can do so. Accordingly, I've never heard someone grouse about this, or if they did it was due to not being familiar with the rule.

But recently there was a guy who, in the course of 2-3 hours, probably dusted off $75 from his stack via drink orders (paying $10 a pop) plus a couple of food orders for even more. After the guy's second food order someone said "enough is enough - you're taking money off the table that we have a right to win." The guy replied that the rules say he can pay that way, and that's what he's doing so if they have an issue they should take it up with management.

What are people's thoughts on this? Are there examples of this indeed being a gray area, where it could depend on how much/often someone does this?

I would prefer that paying for food or drink from one's stack not be allowed at all, but I don't see how it would work to have a particular limit on how much/often it could be done.

In general, casinos will be fine with using your chips to pay for any casino services in any amounts.

Things tend to only get complicated at times when you try to remove (a significant amount) from your stack mid-hand (to pay for food/massage, tip dealer, etc.). There are two schools of thought about that (allow it or force them to wait until the end of the hand), which basically means it comes down to the room rules or specific floor's interpretation.

In a perfect world, obviously it would be ideal for no money to come off the table ever. But casinos want to make it as frictionless as possible for you to pay them for services, and to be honest it's pretty damn convenient for players, too.

I see no problem with using your chips, obviously not mid hand tho.

You don't own anyone else's chips nor do u make the rules of the casino. Tone down the ego a notch to even suggest so

I think you just have to accept this in a casino setting. Technically you are taking money off the table, but in a place that is all about food, drinks and gambling, I'd say it is just part of the deal. I suppose tipping is technically ratholing too, but...

I don't have a problem with that, these guys come there to drink and have fun. Why stop them? They're basically our bread and butter.

What I didn't like for example happened yesterday. A guy goes "almost" all in on the turn. He had about 625 that was bet, leaving 6 white chips behind. The guy called his bet. Before the river card is dealt out, he throws the dealer the 6 white chips who says thank you and happily drops them. This might not be a lot of money but I have more of a problem with this than a guy paying $75 for food and drinks per night.

I agree that it's very convenient to be allowed to pay for services with chips and that it would be hard to implement a limit on how much you are allowed to spend.

That said, there's not really a big difference between taking off $75 from your stack to pay for a massage and "going south" (pocketing those chips). $75 = 37.5BB in a 1/2 game is a lot of money leaving the table.

Why? Now his opponent gets to keep the $6 he was about to lose.

1. People should absolutely not be changing their chip stacks in the middle of a hand. If this isn't prohibited already I would advocate for its prohibition.

2. Changing chip stacks between hands is a grey area, but I've not seen it be a huge problem. Like yeah sometimes the guy with a $20 stack sends half of it to a server on a food/drink order but it's $20 lol and I've never seen anyone grossly abuse the standard system (like tipping $300 on a $10 meal). If politely asking people not to abuse thr system didn't work, I'd reluctantly agree to rules about it.

3. Calling someone out for buying food and drinks (in between hands) is pretty bad, whether it's justified or not. But the real kicker is that using the phrase "chips we have a right to win" while calling someone out is so goddamn awful that it makes me question how people like that function in society.

^^^

callipygian nails it on all points but especially #3. Calling someone out for spending chips they are totally allowed to spend, as though it's breaking some kind of Poker Code of Honour, like regs are morally entitled to every last one of a fun player's chips...just atrocious.

I was at a table where a guy won the $400 high hand. In this room, you can either pocket the high hand money or add it to your stack as long as you dont go over the max buy in. But this guy pocketed the $400 and tipped $40 off of his stack....and he was only playing $150 so now he was down to $110.

I asked the floor about it away from the table and he said it was allowed. Whatever. Its stupid but dont piss off the fish.

I don't even blink an eye if someone orders food or drink at the table from their stack. The only thing that bugs me is when some filthy nit wins a big pot, finds a massage girl, gets an hour or longer massage while basically sleeping at the table the whole time, then pays $100+ off of their stack when it's done.

I think this issue falls under the category of things most of us would like to see stop (at least above some reasonable amount), but I don't think it'll ever change. The recent table talk thread was much the same in that regard.

The chances of it changing would be greater if someone proposed a good rule, one that let people buy food and drink, even for others at the table, but stopped egregious spite-dumping of chips.

I'll admit I can't think of one that wouldn't be ridiculously complicated. Like one could ban paying off more than 10% of your stack, but then when people have like $50 in front of them they can't even buy a beer. So you'd have to have some sort of minimum maximum amount, plus an exception if someone wants to buy a round for the table.

In my room it is more or less a judgment call policy. I let players pull chips off to pay for food or drinks but we ask that they keep it reasonable. Sometimes a guy will want to cash out $20 in chips for "beer money" and I will usually just tell them its fine, but don't make a habit of it. $5 here and there is no big deal, but $20 every half hour is too much. $25 once because they are going to run to eat is fine, etc.

Obviously I'm way more reg than most of you guys, but what I do when I sit down is say, "I bought in for $150, it's either to you guys or the waitress, it's up to you to get it before the waitress."

If someone had a problem with that, (and that has happened...never), I'd laugh my way over to another table.

Not sure if you know what 'reg' means

I'm guessing he meant rec

I have never had a problem with guys paying for stuff or tipping with a few chips. Until he puts them into a pot they are his chips as far as I am concerned.

Last weekend I was playing $1/$2 and a drunk player gave a reg **** for tipping too much. The heavy tipper did tip $25 for a $800 pot and has been giving more than the avg tip I see. However the drunk was going on and on about he has a friend who is a pro that tips $1 every hand, the pro he claimed says if you tip more than that $1 it is impossible to win at $1/$2, and then he went into some crazy bad math about how tipping $2 extra per hand means you are giving away $x (where X is some insanely high number) a year. At that point it felt like the drunk was bullying the reg so I reminded the drunk it was the regs money and he can choose whatever he wants to do with the money. That resulted in the drunk being semi-aggressive towards me for the next hour.

The guy was obviously an obnoxious ass, but his point about his pro friend is certainly right. At least everywhere I've played so far, the 5/10 reg tips the same $1 than the 1/2 reg unless the pot is huge, then there might be a red chip. There's a reason why even 25/50+ players usually have a stack of blue chips. Tips for the dealer and drink service.

Sorry, I obviously meant "rec".

(And to be clear, it has never happened...nor do I anticipate it)

somewhat grey area but what can be done? nothing and i dont really see a problem with it.