I'm wanting to move up in stakes and wouldn't mind getting a little scouting report on the regs in these games from a poker-competent dealer - maybe even give a nice tip for the info. Any thought this might not be okay/ethical?

I'd warn that most dealers are pretty bad at poker, at least comparatively to winning high stakes players. I'm sure it's fine to do and I'd be interested in anyone's take that would call it unethical. It feels a little weird that you'd be wanting to do this though. Ethics aside, I'd think there is something wrong with you if you came to me asking about the game and greasing my palm with a hundo or something.

With that said, weirdness aside, it does sound a little silly to taint your own personal ideas of how people play right from the start before having played a single hand with them. If you're going to be a winning player at whatever stakes it is, your ideas and views on situations are going to be much better than almost any dealer's interpretation.

I wouldn't get into a lot of details - just more like a quick "who are the players that make that game good?" or "X seems like he'd be fun to play with" to get their reaction.

I probably came off a little wrong on this one. If it's just a casual scouting report like that, I'm sure most of them would be more than happy to express their views real fast. I was picturing you sitting down with a dealer and looking for like a detailed report on tendencies or something like that lol. Sorry man.


I still feel like directly tipping for this kind of info would be on the weirder side, but it might feel more natural to just juice up your standard tip the next few times they deal you winners.

you must have enough respect for the dealer's game, then you can trust his/her detailed reads on specific players.

The amount of money you'd have to tip for this information is more than you'd gain from having the information.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with gaining info from friends, whether players or dealers. Sometimes dealers with tell me "table 15 is action", it's usually not specific reads, who is making the game good should be apparent.

One caveat is when dealers are looking at mucked hands or hands that didn't go to showdown. Such at putting that hand at the bottom of the muck and squaring the deck in a way to let a reg know if they got bluffed. Obviously stuff like that is unethical.

Semi-reg asked me about the table he was going to. He gave me a redbird because I told him that the new guy at the table he was table-changing to had been calling people down extremely light. So... not exactly reads so much as telling him about what had been going on in the game before he got there.

Just generally be a friendly, good tipper and you'll get all the information you need for nothing extra, as long as it's minor stuff like you just mentioned. Good games, action players, crazy hands that the fish doubled up with the other day, etc.

When I'm dealing I really don't play close enough attention to get real information. Plus, I'm only there for 30 minutes at a time. I'll pick up a general idea of how loose or tight they are and if they're a regular I might have an idea if they're winning or losing players but that's about it.

I will sometimes throw anecdotes around but I would never want someone to play differently based on something I've told them. You're better off talking to other players at the table, not someone who moved to the dealer chair because they failed at being a player.

If you want to know where the action tables are that night I'm happy to tell you.

What’s a redbird? I’m not trolling I’ve seen this other places and I don’t know... a 20 or hundo?

many places in the US have red chips for $5 denominations.

Even with an above average relationship to a Dealer I think this puts them in a tough spot ... How will it affect things if they say no? Will you ask them at the table, in the room when their brushing or on the side via text or drinking coffee?

I would probably start out by asking them their opinion of your game and then see how open they are about it. You will probably get some 'free' information about a couple of Players at that time as well. Then if you want to take things further you can invite them to a deeper conversation and they may feel less likely to offend you if they decline.

I'm not so sure I would 'pay' for the information, but I would certainly reward them along the way if it pans out. They will know whats out of the ordinary and a silent head nod will suffice a 'Thanks'.

On the flip side, you don't know that they wont let the boyz know that a new fish is on their way over and that you were digging for insight ... and I don't really think you should hold that against them unless you actually did make a payment for intel of some sort. GL

Sounds like a solid plan to ask someone that is probably friendly with his regs how to beat the game. No way that could backfire.

Wouldn't it be easier to just look around when you are in the room and see who is playing in the games routinely. That would give you a good idea of who the regs are and who is normally winning in the games. Then either befriend people that play in the games regularly or someone that drifts between your stake and that stake and get their take on particular regulars in the game.

I feel like going to a random dealer and saying, hey, here's a tip, in between doing your actual job of dealing, making change, keeping the game going etc..., where you sit at a table for 30 minutes at a time, let me know your thoughts on everyone at that stake is not going to get a lot of information.

just want to pick off basic takes on the regs that almost any dealer would observe - basically, who are the top 2 or 3 looseset regs, who are the top 2-3 tightest regs.

I would not trust any dealer who doesn’t also play with the players with this type of information. I mean if you really want this information you could befriend a player in the game but it’s just best to learn for yourself. If you can’t pick up on player tendencies quickly then you will struggle in live poker in general. If your doing it to table select and shot take on good games you only need to know who a couple whales are which is fairly obvious by waitlists/periferal information.

All I'd really want to know from a dealer is which is the action table. Anything more than that can be unreliable and cost me money. If we pay attention, players give away information at the tables all the time that would be much more reliable for us.

Isn’t this information you can quickly figure out on your own?

Dealers and other employees shouldn’t be revealing information about a player that can disadvantage them. You really failed badly in your ethical duty to be fair to the other player. Do you really want your ethics to be on sale for five bucks?

You sound really naive.

i think this is way overblown.

The guy is dealing cards in a casino, not supervising a polling place during a presidential election.

The dealer has a duty to be fair to players while he deals cards to them.

Fine, but I wouldn’t like it if a dealer got up from my table and then started telling some other player how to go about taking my money.

I wouldn’t like that either. But I also wouldn’t like it if a player got up and handed the next guy a “cheat sheet” with my leaks that he just created while playing with me. And the latter one is obviously perfectly fine from an ethics perspective.