in some cases this would be a huge upgrade
and at least with the stone college kid there is a chance they improve.

Dealing is incredibly stressful. It kills your back and shoulders, you deal with drunk, sometimes straight belligerent and rude people constantly.

You need a thick skin but sometimes players take advantage of this and really push the limits.

People cough and sneeze on you. You interact with people who think you are responsible for them losing money. They are miserable and incredibly negative towards the dealer.

Any player who thinks dealing is "easy" doesn't have a clue how much focus, attention, and energy dealing requires. They're probably the same type of person that thinks we're just "throwing cards around".

Some games are easier to deal than others and some veterans make it look easier than others. That doesn't mean it's an easy job by any means.

I'm smart enough to know that I'm improving everyday and need more experience at 8-16 Omaha to be an "A" dealer. I'm not there yet and really respect the guys that can deal that game so well. It takes a while to get that good. I wanna get there though. I'm sufficient but definitely not the best. It's even harder with certain types of players.

There are plenty of more stressful jobs. Dealing poker you get to hang out with people playing a game and having fun. Just about any mistake you make, even though it might make someone angry at you, is usually easily corrected. It's not like your mistakes as a dealer will have as when a nurse, doctor, police officer, or airline pilot might make. That's a different kind of stress altogether.

On the other hand...

When you're at the table, you never get to take a mental time out. When I used to work in front of a computer for a living if I got distracted I could just sit back, take a minute or two to clear my head, and then get back to focusing on my job. You don't have that luxury when you deal cards. You can't just take a quick bathroom break or grab a cold drink whenever you want. Sometimes you deal 8 or 9 straight tables without a break. That's 4+ hours when the players demand that you be on the ball and keep the game going smoothly and quickly without any errors.

Forget about having a normal schedule. Throw your old social life out the window. Oh, all of your friends are going to a concert on Friday night? Yeah, I'll be at work. But, hey, if they schedule a concert for Tuesday at 11 AM, count me in, because that's when I'm not busy. I haven't had a weekend off in about 5 years other than when I've been on vacation. I often work 12 hours and get home at 3 AM, knowing that I have to be back at work at 1 PM the next day.

Many of the players are disgusting. They don't wash their hands or cover their mouth when they cough. Players who are too sick to go to work are happy to come play poker and sniffle for 30 minutes while they sit next to you. Every table has 2 or 3 players who are positive they know the rules better than you do.

Do you ever take a 60 minute lunch break at your job? By the time the push goes through I'm happy to get 20 minutes to run to the bathroom and then cram as much food down as I can before I'm due back at the next table.

Yes, dealing is basically an easy job. There's no e-mails. There's hardly ever a staff meeting. When I finish dealing my last hand of the table I forget about it and move on to the next table. When I finish my last hand of the night I forget about poker altogether and just go home. There's never any "unfinished work" like a report that's due the next day or a client presentation that I have to finish. But just because poker dealers don't have the type of stress at their job that you have at your job, don't think that they're taking it easy while they pitch cards to you.

I'm grateful for the tips that I get. I know that there are people out there who work with their hands in a field or on a construction site who make less money than I do pitching cards. But I've never once considered that I might be overpaid for what I do.

what you said is true for good dealers.
however there are way too many dealers that think their job is to throw some cards around and have people throw money at them in return.

"Every table has 2 or 3 players who are positive they know the rules better than you do."

My experience is that with current state is dealers two of them are likely to be right.

Well there's 1 of them right there.

Hi,

I don't have much experience with tournaments so wondering what's the etiquette for tipping if I make it to the final table?

Usually the tournaments I play are $300 to $400 buy in range and the final three players get paid >=10k or so. Sometimes they do have dealer add-ons.

I usually tip 1-2 per pot at cash games. But tournaments look different.

Thanks.

If I cash for 10K on a $300-$400 buying tournament, I'm probably giving the amount of the buy in towards the dealers. As those tournaments can be long and their "down rates" for dealing tournaments can be really low and most would rather deal live action games because of it.

If there's a dealer add-on and/or a percentage of the prize pool withheld, then you've already tipped. But if not, I'd go up to 5% depending on how I thought the tournament was run/dealt. (I've tipped a lot more than 5% in small daily tournaments, but the money wasn't big.)

Thanks! Somewhere between a buy-in & 5% when there is no dealer add-on sounds good.

This sounds good. I'd personally still tip even if there was an add on, though.

I think all dealers would.

As a dealer, I think dealers are overpaid relative to someone who works fast food or as a nurse aide or something, but those jobs are underpaid.

That being said, I think being a dealer is crazy unfulfilling, no matter what, you're going to be a facilitator in someone's unhappiness. You work at Mcdonald's, you're not going to ruin anyone's day by giving them the food they ordered. Personally, I can't imagine doing it for the long haul. Who wants to spend their life in a monument to human misery?

I was playing with this reg at 2/5 a couple nights ago, I noticed that he didn't tip on a big pot. Eh, maybe forgot, whatever. He went on to win the very next hand, again big enough to warrant a $1 I'd say, no tip. Went on to win a couple more hands with that dealer, no tips. Maybe he doesn't tip just that dealer, who knows.

I paid attention to every pot he won over the next 5 hours, didn't tip a single dollar the entire time. Whatever, kinda scummy imo since the guy is a reg and I see him there almost every time I'm there, but if you don't tip then so be it. But this guy had the gall to start up conversations with almost every dealer that sits at the table. If you are going to contribute to that dealer making less money than they would have had you not been there, at least don't insult them and make them talk to you as if you are buddy buddy with them. I'm sure on the inside they all hate him.

CSB?

I had a dealer once that was tell me that people can either stiff her or abuse her but not do both. Maybe they feel the same. Anyway, hopefully you didn't dump some hands to him to check to see if he would tip.

Yeah I'm not quite sure I understand your point. Are you saying that the player not tipping should double-down and be rude to the dealer? I suppose he just doesn't believe in the tipping system and cares much more about his bottom line.

Do I agree with him? No, I definitely would be tipping on big winning hands. Do I think he's a piece of dirt scumbag? No. If we're going to belittle people for not tipping, then tipping is hardly a "discretionary" practice anymore if you're required to in order to avoid being shamed.

I think you're mostly annoyed from the fact that it's not just a losing rec thats not tipping, but the fact that they're a winning player thats not tipping. Which is a different issue entirely. Either way, your point is very silly. So long as the dealer is appearing to be enjoying talking to them and isn't distracting them to the point of doing a poor job (and thus getting even less tips), then what's the harm? You're probably right that many are resentful that he's not tipping, but not every dealer is that biased and emotionally unaware to the point that they automatically hate people that aren't directly contributing to their living. Many understand that they simply have to do their job well and see the fruits of the labor -- meaning that many will undertip and many will overtip. You don't have to scorn those who undertip in hopes they change their behavior, you might squeeze a few bucks out of them on the spot but they're more likely to become long-term tippers if they actually believe you earned their money, not because they got bullied into it. Don't just expect it.

In summary, you can make a judgment based on him not tipping if you'd like, but it's ludicrous to bring up the fact he enjoys small-talk as a piece of evidence that he's even worse then somebody who just doesn't tip and is quite. Very dependent on the people/situation

YGO you might be underestimating how many and how often service workers are performing with their banter and small talk. It absolutely does indicate that this non-tipper is either more oblivious or more scummy than someone who stiffs quietly.

Nothing was said about the harm or the dealers' perceived hate (wtf?). He was talking about the player.

Just because he's cheap doesn't mean he's not a human being, worthy of conversation.

I think you're underestimating how much service workers are alike to human beings, in such that they'd prefer interaction over autonomy day after day. It also depends on the type of work, waiter for example -- sure, most of their interaction is forced, and if you don't plan on tipping them you should let them get to their other tables. But a dealer is stuck there either way, so I'm sure some of them appreciate a good conversation (even if the person is cheap). Not all of course, but saying the majority would prefer silence (and to a greater extent would specifically prefer silence from somebody not tipping them) is a very bold claim.

Uh, yes there was comments about dealers perceived hate. Literally his last sentence was "Im sure on the inside all the dealers hate you".

Agreed Tom.

Yikes Tom, I don't think everyone would agree with you on that. And aside from what makes one worthy, have you never encountered someone at a poker table who feels entitled to conversation? That's probably every other or every third table I've sat at.

But football0020's post was about proportion. It's about a cheapskate who chats up dealer after dealer while each is forced by the nature of his or her service job and the constraints of the space to grin and bear it, to hold up one end of the implied contract while the other party has the convenience of ignoring it.

Is it possible that some dealers don't mind? Yeah I guess, but how many interesting and self-aware people do you know who don't subscribe to tipping? I'd bet he's insufferable.

YGO: Sorry about the "hate" thing. I took football to mean they hate him for his lack of awareness, not for refusing to directly contribute to their bottom lines, but that's neither an important distinction nor one that makes me less wrong.

I mean, it's entirely possible he's not interesting, but this isn't a debate about how likely it is that somebody who doesn't tip is also a poor conversationalist. That's why I said it depends on the situation, and once again goes back to my point that if we're so unbelievably critical of people solely off their decision to not tip (you're already making drastic assumptions of him being uninteresting and unaware), then tipping is no longer a discretionary/gratuitous practice and instead one done out of fear of being shamed.

I'm sure you're right that dealers often keep up conversations they'd rather not because they feel obligated.... and likely have a ton of conversations that they'd like to have even off the clock. If anything, I would guess that they'd feel much less compelled to keep up with a conversation they weren't enjoying from somebody they knew wasn't going to tip them either way. It's not relevant though, because the point is WE SIMPLY DON'T KNOW! And judging it purely from him being a non-tipper is silly.

You're absolutely right, I'm guessing a lot of people would disagree with Tom. Which is exactly why a large % of people tip. Not because they want to, but because their peers would show disgust towards them. That doesn't mean the disgust is warranted, but it exists nevertheless. I have mixed feelings about the tipping system in general, but I'd say I likely support it specifically for poker dealers to incentivize good service. What I don't like is how we've turned a system of gratuity into a system of expectation and shame, to the point where people don't even have to do a good job because people feel obligated to tip regardless of the quality of service they receive.

I think this is the main reason dealers are tipped,and probably the reason for most tipping in general. I know it is for me.

Absolutely.

We often don't even realize how much we spend in tips, especially if you play a lot of hours. (I would never discuss this at the table, because I don't want to encourage others to tip less [because I like most of the dealers], but I don't have a problem talking about it online in a forum specifically meant for this type of discussion. And I'm sure a lot of dealers will take it personally because opening up to this type of discussion will only serve to hurt their long-term earnings).

That being said, I probably tip ~10k/year, maybe more, and I'd bet most of us don't like to think about this number. I think its fine because I'm playing some bigger games that it doesn't heavily cut into my winrate. But if I was grinding 1/2 for $15/hour playing 2k hours/year, there's no way I'd be tipping 10k of my 30k yearly income. And that's a very reasonable assumption of $5/hr in tips, to say you average somewhere around winnings 5 hands per hour and tip the standard $1/hand.

A lot of this is perspective, and it also depends on other factors and the specific set of circumstances at play. I also come at it from the management side of things more, so while of course I want my dealers to make as much money in tips as possible, I'm not personally going to treat a non-tipper any different unless he gives me direct reason to. Maybe that's just my nature also. Everyone is different there too. "Football" takes a player out of Bravo and replaces him as a guest if he's a non-tipper or he doesn't like him. That's different.

Do we all cut up the players who don't tip in the breakroom? Sure of course we do. Hopefully karma bites him more often than it doesn't. But that doesn't excuse treating him poorly because he doesn't tip. That's not the customer service that I learned about when I started working at a casino.

Tipping is considered appropriate for good service in certain industries. There are no rules that can be followed. You can tip because a dealer continually gives you good cards. You can tip because the dealer is a nice person. You can tip because she is the fastest dealer in the room. It's your perogative as a player.

Good points. I want to be clear that the reasoning is not "non-tipper → uninteresting and unaware". It's that in my experience people who don't tip by policy tend to fall into other unfavorable social categories, and at a rate frequent enough to make the safe assumption when I learn of the non-tipping. (There can be false positives, sure, but we all do this to some degree and in some form or another.)

So it does not follow that tipping is therefore not discretionary/gratuitous. My discretionary tipping is not at all incompatible with "many people who flagrantly reject a social norm will lack competency in other social areas", regardless of whether you agree with that assumption.

You're probably right, and that sucks. It might be true for me too. But then it does not explain why I would leave a tip for a server standing out of sight at a restaurant I am unlikely to return to in a city I am visiting, even though I would. Is that about fear of guilt (self-shaming)? Or is it evidence that I might not be part of "most"?