Surely they can't include tips as part of the wage so it would be technically illegal to pay less than minimum wage? Note: I have no idea about these things.

My casino (UK) pays around the equivalent of $10/$11 per hour.

In some states (CO is one of them), you don't take your tokes home (like in Vegas). They are counted in the cage, taxed, and put into your paycheck.

I had to include that I didn't know about these things so I wasn't taken as some smarmy know-it-all!

But, wow, I would not like to have my wage based on how generous punters are feeling.

Name one and explain why federal law isn't applicable ....

While federal minimum wage laws allows a tip credit it doesn't allow the tip credit to bring wages down to $0

under present federal regulations the minimum a tipped employee could be paid is $2.13 per hour (there are exemptions to the minimum wage laws but none would commonly apply to dealers)

I'd never heard of any dealers being paid less than minimum wage...

...until the most recent increase in the minimum wage, which came during the recession. My employer at the time (not my current employer) sent us all a note that said, "Since you earn tips, and we're not required to keep you at min-wage, we're not going to."

Some states don't have a tipped minimum wage.

Oh, yeah, I didn't mean player issue floor calls. I don't count those against anyone. I'm talking about the just-wait-til-you-see-the-mistake-I-made-this-time grin. We even had one that would chuckle and say "you aren't going to believe what I did this time Tristan" as I am walking up to the table. Oh, I believe it...

http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm

$2.13/hr is the minimum for tipped employees, as PS says. I see no state that says $0 is an acceptable minimum wage. Washington state at $9.19/hr for tipped employees looks like the place to be.

I can't even remember what the situation was, but I remember smiling and telling the floor as they were walking up "we've got a completely normal and in no way bizarre situation here."

This would be the rule at my place...more specifically you can't ask to be added to or removed from the list during a down, and it is very frowned upon mid-string.

It shouldn't need to be a rule. Dealers ought to have enough common sense to keep that off the tables. But of course they don't. Our room used to allow a dealer to ask a floor person to put them on the eo list. But off course some idiot decided to bring his game to a stop to call the floor to the table for that and then went to a rule that you had to sign in person (no asking the floor to do it for you) and can only sign before shift or on a break.

What's EO list?

and most places tokes are cashed at the end of shift, and reporting is up to the employee.

I don't think this is true of dealers. In Vegas we have a system where we are taxed at a tip rate set but the IRS. We can opt out ... but then we are subject to audit. Reporting zero would certainly get an audit.

In other places tokes are counted and reported by the cage.

I suspect anyplace using a tip credit would have some sort of count and report system becaus ethe law requires that the reduced wages plus tips at least make the minimum wage and an employer would need some sort of evidence to establish this.

Early out.

Basically the idea is that dealers volunteer to leave when they aren't needed. of course after a while dealers like to think of it as some inherent right. I have actually heard dealers complain to management that they aren;t scheduling enough dealers to allow EO's...... And they are serious.

Then they are not getting lower than federal minimum are they.

Oh, you will know very soon!! Most new dealers will start off committed to working as much as possible, but after a few months E.O. (early out) fever will set in. It's like gambling...you sign up on a the E.O. list hoping to get out of work earlier than normal. Then you watch the action in the room like a sports better watches the game they have money on...sweating as you to wait to see if your bet will come in or not.

We don't have enough dealers in the building for there to be an EO list. There's literally 5 poker staff (not inc. the GM) at a maximum at any one time and usually only two or three are dealers.

Which casino you at?

So you have 3 dealers and one game going and not much hope of getting another game before next shift gets in ....why keep three dealers doing double breaks?

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Two of us are new dealers (around a month working there) so we need to have a supervisor/dealer with us. The tournament room and cash game room are separate and we usually have them going on at the same time so two dealers needed at anyone one time while one floor staff watches over the whole thing.

Edit: We don't actually need supervised, it's more for if any floor decisions are needed and we can't shout through to the other room.

Also, I'm not sure if you are aware but in the UK most cash games only run for a maximum of 10 hours (usually 6 hours) with the exception of London.

So you close at some point. So as you are coming to closing if you are not needing all your dealers it becomes even more silly to keep them.

Now of course if your rooms business is so predictable that you always need the dealers you have then an EO wouldn't occur.

But for example you say there is a tournament room and a cash room (seems excessive for a staff that never exceeds 5).

So lets say you have three dealers. One in the cash game, one in the tournament and one dealer up .... your tournament ends .... its an hour and a half till closing time ..... aren't you now overstaffed?

If that never happens ... then its great for you. But when you rely on tips for a living and the room is overstaffed it pretty much sucks.

Your first point about when we come to close: generally we will have one cash table and the final table of the tournament between 3-5am and we close poker at 5:30. At this point, we may still have 4 staff members (2 dealers, the floor/TD and one dealer/supervisor) but one dealer may or may not be allowed to leave depending on whether or not the tournament FT will be played to the end or is close to finishing (to allow for breaks).

If the FT finishes, any one of us could be requested to leave including the TD. TD makes the decision and it could even be him/her that leaves.

No requests are made about who leaves, we are generally just told.

I setup casino scheduling environments for a living (80+ so far) and the EO notion is one that is slowly being phased out, and more rules are being put in place. The ability for an employee to EO or claim FMLA, turns everything into a complete nightmare to schedule adequate games to be open at all times.

Every prior environment I have worked in has 0 policies on EO procedure, and every floor is different to the next, allowing for total abuse of the system.

- Ask a few of your floors what the rules are for the EO list, I guarantee you will get totally different answers from everyone

This is going to sound super harsh and is no way directed towards the quotes, but the whole notion of an EO has gone out the window. The idea behind an EO is to save the company money, its not an entitlement and in no way should a dealer feel obliged to 'Earn an EO' or a floor be pressured into forcing dealers out.

I have heard every single excuse under the sun of why we should:
- Schedule to EO's
- Schedule to allow coverage if a game is required
- Schedule to allow complete skill coverage
- Schedule to allow for complete breaks

Now anyone who has worked in a scheduling environment would understand the following:

- Dealers have availability that changes, either daily or weekly
- Some dealers have FMLA which must be factored into the spread
- We have spread changes that require different dealers at different times
- Tournaments run at specific times and vary depending on amount of runners

All of these characteristics must be taken into account when scheduling, couple that with scheduling correct games, and EO/FMLA/Call-outs is the reason why dealer satisfaction is horrific.

- Running a short string, my bet is your floor sent home someone on the EO list
- Incompetent dealer in the big game, my bet is the floor sent home the first dealer on the EO list, not the new $1/$2 dealer
- Cant open a new game, my bet is a dealer went home on FMLA/Call-out/EO

The fundamental problems with the 'EO List':

- Employees must maintain 32 hours to keep their FT status
- EO is based on a list, the first person to enter the list is the first person home, this is a complete joke if your most senior/talented dealers are always on the list
- The first people who complain about not being scheduled a fair amount of shifts, are the first people on the EO list

In a lot of the environments dealers are lucky they have incompetent HR departments, as the majority of dealers don't even make it close to 32 hours per week of actual work. In reality nearly all FT dealers should have their benefits removed, due to not meeting minimum standard hours!

In the last month we have run reports from well over 25 rooms, and the average FT dealer 'Actual worked' time is 30.5 hours, this will not come as a shock to anyone who works in these rooms.

With the introduction of Obama's policies (Benefits are paid for any team member averaging over 30 hours) there is going to be a huge scrutiny on worked hours in the coming 6 months, a lot of rooms will start to see an influx of PT team members, and a ton of FT dealers losing their FT status due to the inability to maintain their quota.

http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/heal...rk_hours13.pdf

Hopefully this doesnt come off as a rant, rather gives you guys a heads up of what is coming down the pipeline for a lot of major casinos...