I thought using the word "standard" would be straightforward enough. I wasn't implying an acceptable or recommended amount. I was stating that 5-10% is the most typical or common amount of a tip for a promotional bonus of around $500. I work in a region where high hand bonuses of $100 to $500 (depending on the time, day, and casino) are paid anywhere from once every 15 minutes to once an hour, and I've dealt my share of them, so I'm speaking on experience here. 5 to 10 percent is the most frequent tip amount. Some players won't tip at all for a high hand. Some will tip 1%. And I've gotten as high as 50% from a reg who promised to split it with me if I dealt him the high hand, and then kept his word when I did. But the majority of tips I get on these payouts falls in that 5 to 10 percent range.

I also agree that these same players are unlikely to tip 5 to 10 percent if they double up on their first hand at a 2-5 game with a $500 buy-in.

played private 5 5 game last night with a min 500 max 1500. each player whether it was a 200 pot or a 3k pot threw the dealer no more than $2. only red bird i saw given away was a 3way all in on the flop of top2, nfd, and flopped straight. ran 3x for a 5k pot and straight held all 3


...but nobody cares i bet

Standard for jackpots should be based on the amount of hands the dealer loses as a result of you getting paid out.

So if the floor wastes 5 minutes getting to your table to verify a valid hand for promo payout and another 5 minutes bringing a new setup because they're lazy and inept, you feel a responsibility to tip the dealer a few extra bucks. But if the floor does their job in 90 seconds then a single white chip (or maybe 2) will suffice.

Got it.

This is actually pretty 'standard'! Most people think the dealers rake it in on the higher stakes games. That's simply NOT the case. I've pushed $3-4k pots and have gotten as little as $1 and sometimes $0! Most of the time, these larger games are timed rake so there's no extra money coming off the table each hand.

Yet in these same games, if you happen to push that same $2k pot to the 'right' player, you might get $20 or possibly more, depending on their mood, if they like you as a dealer, if you are one of the better dealers in the house, etc.

However at a 1/2 nl table, where anywhere from $5-7 is coming off the table each hand, pots that are over $500, I have been tipped anywhere from $5 - $50 ... again, depending on the player of course.

This thread has always come down to one thing. People are going to tip whatever amount they want and there's really nothing you can do about it. Talk to any dealer and any of them will tell you ... it's all about who you push the pot to and believe it or not, just like the player who gets lucky and sucks out on the river, dealers have to get lucky too at work, by pushing pots to the right players.

And as someone told me a long time ago to just remember, perception is reality.

I don't play in games that collect promotional rakes (bad beat, high hand, etc.), but it sounds reasonable to me. All that promotional money is money that was previously raked from the players, so why do you feel a % is correct when you are satisfied with a buck or two per pot you push during a down?

Why not push for 5-10% of every pot in a cash game to be the new toking standard? I'm sure you'd love that, but you know it has zero chance of catching on because it makes no sense to players to tip that way. Why should a promotional payout be any different?

If anything, it seems like toking the runner doing your paperwork/getting your money makes more sense, and if one were so inclined to tip this person, how much do you feel the paperwork guy should get, a percentage, a couple of bucks?

Correct. It's the most logical way I can think of. For a big BBJ that takes an hour or so, I'd tip something like $75 because that's higher than the fastest dealing claims I've seen on here, which are ~30 hands per down in mid-stakes limit holdem games. I don't want a dealer getting screwed over because of my good fortune.

I'm not promoting any sort of tipping policy. And if I were going to do that, I know better than to do it here. The post I originally answered was from a player who identified himself as someone who believes in tipping and who asked for thoughts on winning a $500 jackpot at the table.

My answer was that 5 to 10 percent is standard. Argue all you want about whether that amount is earned, justified, correct, or deserved - it won't change the fact that the majority of players (at least in my region) tip that amount for that circumstance.

As for tipping the chip runner or brush who does the paperwork and brings the money, I absolutely encourage tipping that person. And when I play and win a high hand jackpot, I tip both the chip runner and the dealer who dealt me the winning hand.

Bolt2112- i didnt mean to come across as if I was disputing your claim of standard. I actually agree that if you ask a lot of people, including 100% of dealers, you'll get an answer around 5-10%. I was just saying that IMO that standard was essentially created and repeated by dealers, and whenever a newbie asks about tipping, the dealers give them a percentage answer. So many dont question the premise of a percentage at all, but rather focus on what percent. And by doing so it creates a sense of entitlement that guilts players who havent really thought about it into giving very large amounts.

But I'm also in the camp of letting anyone tip whatever they want. If some rich businessman wants to tip $1000 on a $5000 jackpot because 1k means nothing to him or his lifestyle, then more power to him, and good for the dealer. But it just makes me angry when I see a young person, who say works a retail service job at $11 per hour, get pressured to give hundreds or thousands of dollars as a tip when he only takes home about $750 every two weeks from his job. What that money represents to him, and the work in his day job he would have to do to make it, is vastly different than for a well off businessman.

The other excuse I hear about that is that a jackpot is "found money" and the winner is being cheap by not sharing a lot of it with the dealer. But if I were making a list of people I know that are important to me and have supported me in my life, and thereby deserve a share of found money, the poker dealer would be pretty far down that list.

I've just become more jaded about this topic because over the last year or so I have heard many dealers openly badmouthing players about BBJ tips at the table. One lamented that on average dealers were only getting around 4% of BBJ instaed of 10, ignoring the fact that a table share for a player was only around 3%. That they feel so comfortable to openly bitch about not getting more than the players shows how entitled they feel.

/rant about ungrateful dealers.

Don't be disingenuous. By coming in here and telling a noob what is standard (and no one disputes your figure of what is standard), you are promoting a tipping policy, and no one here is going to fault you for that.


Specifically, do you tip the runner a percentage (say on the $500 high hand in question), or how much do you tip the runner and why?

If I frequented a travel forum and a noob came and asked what was the most popular theme park in Florida, I'd answer Disney World, and I wouldn't be accused of promoting Disney or being a shill for Disney. I gave an impartial and objective answer to a legitimate question.

If you asked me what a common tip was on a $10,000 pot on a $25-50 NL table, I'd answer between $1 and $3 and nobody would ever accuse me of promoting that amount.


I don't have a set policy for this, but if a chip runner processed a $500 high hand payout, I'd probably give him $10 and $50 to the dealer. However, I know a lot of chip runners, dealers, and floor people in the area, so there's not really a standard for me. I received $200 for a high hand several months ago and was friends with the chip runner and the dealer - I gave $20 to the runner and $40 to the dealer. Another time, a floor person gave me $250 for a high hand (floor people accept tips at this particular room). Again I was friends with this dealer and gave him $50 and I gave nothing to the floor person (I know that dealers give a percentage of their tips to the house, the majority of which go to the floor personnel). Plus I don't much care for that particular floor person.

You mean to tell me that where you play the game stops entirely while the BBJ is being processed?

I've only been at a BBJ table once, while I was on vacation. As I recall, it took about 5 minutes to verify the hand and the deck and to collect all of the players' ID's. Then the game resumed for the hour or so until the floor returned with the payouts, which took another 5 or 10 minutes to hand out to the players.

i hit the bbj a few weeks ago it took over an hour to get paid and for play to resume.

Agreed. Stating a fact(?) is in no way endorsing that fact.

I won't bother addressing the Disney analogy because everyone sees the underlying flaw (as well as in the $10K pot example), but why do you tip the dealer significantly more than the person doing the paperwork and getting your money?

Wait, what is the underlying flaw?

The underlying flaw in the Disney analogy and the $10K pot analogy is that neither of them can possibly be interpreted as a greedy dealer trying to convince all of the 2P2'ers to increase their tipping when they play poker.

The reason(s) I tip the dealer more than the chip runner:

1. Dealers don't deal a high hand every time there's a promotion. The chip runner does pay out the high hand every time there's a promotion. If there's 20 dealers in the room and 2 chip runners, then the dealer has a 1 in 20 chance of dealing the bonus. The chip runner has a 1 in 2 chance of paying it out.

2. The dealer is the one who shuffled, cut, and pitched the cards. Yes, I am fully aware that the dealer didn't do anything extra to ensure that I got a winner, but he or she is going to share in my random good fortune for the random shuffling/cutting that they did. Similarly, the day I win lottery, I'm going to give the cashier at 7-11 a nice tip for hitting the quick-pick button at exactly the right moment.

3. Dealers tip out the chip runners in this region. Additionally, a percentage of dealer tips are taken off the top and split among the support staff (including floor personnel, chip runners, and brushes). By giving the dealer a tip, the chip runner's already getting a piece of it.

No, that's not it at all. Like I said, I'll just leave it at that. Thanks for clarifying why you toke the runners less.

Wait what? Dealer can't accept that.

I'm guessing he did not accept it at that time. Just a guess.

My last two shifts, I've dealt out 3 high hand bonuses, each worth between $100 and $500 for the player. This is better than average for me, but not a huge aberration.

1. 2/4 limit table. Player is familiar to me, but not quite a reg. Tips $1 on pots in the $20+ range and may or may not tip on a hand between $10-$20. (Not judging the player here, but showing his regular tipping pattern... and 2/4 pots don't typically get bigger than $40 in my room. If I were to guess ahead of time, I'd have predicted a tip of 1-2% for the bonus payout and no tip at all seems possible.

2. 1/2 NL table. Player is a reg who plays 30+ hours per week. He tips $1 on substantial pots and doesn't tip on smaller pots. Like the 2/4 player before him, I'd guess a 1-2% tip on the bonus.

3. 1/2 NL table. Player is a semi-reg who rarely tips, regardless of pot size. I've pushed him $100+ pots and received no tip, but I've also received a $5 tip from him on a hand when he sucked out on the river to win the pot. My best guess is that he'd not tip at all on the high hand bonus.

Once again, the descriptions of the players are not to promote any sort of personal agenda, but rather to illustrate what my idea of a standard* tip is for bonus payouts.

*Standard - meaning, the reality of how players actually do tip in my region, as opposed to anyone's personal belief of how players "should" tip.



I'll be happy to keep track of bonus payouts and tip amounts for a larger sample size if anyone's interested. Otherwise I'll put this topic to bed.

No need to player profile all the guys you've dealt high hands to - when you said "standard" tip, I, (we?), knew you meant "average" tip, and no one contested your figure of what the average tip is for high hands.

60 player tournament, $210 buy in, $10 of which is "optional" dealer appreciation (you have the option of not paying and starting with T100)

What would your tip to the dealers and the cage be on a $2.6k payout?

$0. Tip already has been taken out via "dealer appreciation." If no tip had been taken out automatically, I'd probably tip $100 or so.

Ok, so I wasn't a massive nit by giving $25 to the dealers and an odd $4 to the cage