He's not lieing about that 90k at prairie meadows. ive played there and other casinos in iowa. people tip 1-2 even on small pots it seems, EVERY POT. bigger pots they tip 5 bucks or more. they are dealing 20-30 hands an hour. do the math. thats about $30-40 hr. i wouldn't doubt they make that much at all. 90k might be streching it but most around here make pretty decent money.
i think tips are higher in iowa because rake is actually pretty low. they only rake like %10 and $3 max. they also comp you a dollar an hour in some rooms.

Not sure how you don't see the connection. There isn't a poker player in the world that is going to read any information anywhere and think "Those folks make too much for what they're doing" when they inevitably compare it to working at a fast food place. You say strangers on the internet, and yes, you're mostly anonymous here, but the information ends up being out there and it does get to some of the players around the country, and some of those players tell other players, etc.


At this point, you'll probably say you don't care, but if I could somehow send your posts to a few people in your room, I don't think you'd be happy with me. In a sense, that's what you're doing to all of us, inadvertently.


And no, I don't think that we're overpaid. I do think that the average poker player BELIEVES we are overpaid and I can see how they might think that.

I'm sure on a busy night, this dealer makes an amount that can easily be extrapolated to hit 90K a year. I'm sure on a slow day, you can easily extrapolate his yearly salary to 20K a year. The final amount lies somewhere between. There might be 5 or 6 days a year where a dealer deals 8 hours straight in the manner by which you're doing your math. Ask that dealer how much he just made on that dead spread next time he pushes into your table.

Some do, some don't. We really appreciate the guys that always a tip a buck, even on pots like this.

I've had tables/downs where I literally put out maybe 4 or 5 flops for the entire 30 minutes. The action kept going Raise, fold, fold, fold fold, rinse repeat. Super tight tables, no action.

If the dealer is good and is getting out hands, then why not throw him a buck?

If the game is dirt and the dealer is good I'll tip every 2-3 blind steals but I won't be in that game long

Agreed. In particular, I definitely tip a good dealer on the second blind steal in a row if it happens to me.

It is amazing (really not) on how different tips are when the dealing 'execution' is basically the same. I've been regularly sitting in Seat 1 lately and been observing the toke boxes, which conveniently have a clear window in them from top to bottom, as they come and go and there's a vast difference in the tips when I view the Dealers as equally skilled.

$90K a year? Let's just say a Dealer gets $20K a year in base salary. They now need $1350 a week in tips ($270 per day/5 day week) to get there. Impossible? No, but improbable? Yes?

In a certainly unique/rare gesture I saw a 4-green tip cross the table in a 2/5 PLO game where a Player won a 3-way Flop all-in and held 'to get him back to even' at about $3k. The Dealers love to try to figure out how many PLO downs they will get during their shift as it can make or break their day. GL

I think the better Canterbury Park dealers can make near that number. There are always games (no competition anywhere near), they are almost only dealing limit games (way more hands per hour), and 90-95% of players tip every hand ($1-3 per hand, average of 1.25 or more). They do have to deal some other games and tournaments, but I bet they do pretty well. See some of the same dealers there I used to see 15 years ago.

Just thinking of all the entitled dealers around the U.S. who expect tips for doing absolutely nothing boils my blood. How is dealing cards a middle class profession? Grrrr. The porters who clean up food are working twice as hard as you and they always smile and say a sincere thank you when given their only buck of the day.

I am enacting a new policy of only tipping fast dealers, dealers who encourage straddling/coddle the fish, and pretty young women. $1 and that’s it.

Arguments that dealers are expecting a livable wage and thus it is wrong or rude to stiff them also fall on my deaf ears. Retail workers who have their hours cut in half and no longer get health insurance were expecting a living wage too. Company men who work for a business for twenty years then are fired right before getting a pension bump were expecting that too. Boohoo the world isn’t fair to anyone.

If you are providing a true service, e.g. while as a waitress really making me feel taken care of when I eat, genuinely being nice to me, keeping my water non-stop filled then yes you are working for a well-deserved tip and providing an unspoken service. If you are sitting in a seat pitching cards then no I am not giving you money for nothing.

And yes people tip to feel good about themselves or to make sure no one else thinks they are cheap.

Found the newest troll, let's see how many posts people engage this one for.

Where are these dealers that expect to be tipped while on dead spreads? We don't have any of them on the east coast of the US.

I throw dealers that I like a redbird here and there on deadspreads, but it's probably not common enough for it to be expected

Since you brought it up... Just how good (or fast or young and pretty) do you think the dealers would be if they were just mere minimum wage highschool dropouts that didn't earn tips, like the ones that **** up your order at the McD's drive-thru and have you screaming at your windshield the whole way home about how hard it is to not put onions on your dbl cheese?

Probably a little worse than the low end of WSOP dealers.

How many WSOP dealers are there? By my rough calculation, they have about 300 tables at the WSOP (+/- 100). That's a minimum of 1000 temporary dealers they're hiring for a 6 week event. And to muddy the waters a bit, they're also hiring hundreds of temporary dealers at the Venetian for the deep stack series which takes place at the same time. And I'm pretty sure the Bellagio also runs some big tournaments as well.

It's reasonable to estimate that there are 1500 additional dealers working in Vegas during the WSOP compared to December.

By reputation, the WSOP is one of the most brutal events to work as an event dealer. I know some event dealers who have no interest at working that event and are happy to stay busy at the Wynn or Venetian for a month or two rather than deal with the WSOP.

Compare this to the Hard Rock series which just completed in South Florida. They have their regular crew working in the 40 table room, which gets busier than normal, with lots of high limit games spreading during their series. And in the tournament room, which takes place in the event center, they have maybe 100 tables (probably less). Which works out to about 300 event dealers who come into town for that series.

It should come as no surprise that the Hard Rock gets to pick only the most experienced traveling dealers for their event. Whereas, the WSOP isn't getting all of those 300 dealers, because a good amount of them are working at other Las Vegas strip rooms instead. And even if they were all at the WSOP, that would only make up about 1/3 of their staff.

HR doesn't hire anywhere near 300 dealers for the events. If they have 100 tables in the event center (I haven't been there since they moved from the big meeting room so I don't know the actual number) they're likely hiring around 125-150 dealers. 1000 is about right for WSOP.

HR gets better traveling dealers than most events because the pay and conditions are better. Being in South Florida in Winter is pretty nice as well.

Dealing, and dealing well as a matter of fact, is a skill. It's something that needs to be learned, practiced, perfected, and maintained.

I find it very common that players who have been "playing for 20 years" think they could deal a live action game.

Well, one could argue it takes more training to work at McDonalds. If you took a mediocre player, and told he/she they were going to deal for a down or two, and didn't tell any of the other players that this "test" was about to happen, I find it likely noone would even notice. Might be slower, might make some mistakes, and I doubt anyone would think anything was out of the norm.

But if took a mediocre person who eats at McDonalds, and told them they were going to be manning the counter, drive thru window, or cooking the burgers without any training and practice, this would likely be pandemonium in the ring.

Your example is possibly correct, except that there's a crucial issue with your comparison.

The average player in a casino spend *far* more time watching a dealer and interacting with them than the average McDonalds customer would with the Point of Sale system.

You don't spend 2 - 6 hours a weekend staring at your McDonalds cashier and critiquing many of their moves.


Beyond that, I still disagree. Self checkout at McDonalds (and many grocery stores) strongly suggests we could in fact do a large part of what they do.

I tip my dealers, but other than "it's tradition," I don't really understand why I'm tipping. If it is to ensure the dealers make a livable wage, then I'm annoyed that it is somehow my responsibility to provide wage rather than the employer's.

Electronic tables make a ton of sense to me and I often wonder how long it will be until they take over.

I think "might be slower" is a huge understatement, the game would come creeping to a turtle pace and players would quickly start to get agitated. But poker players would definitely catch on much quicker than if you just hired some random person off the street. Players already know how the game works and how to read hands, but if you're expecting someone who has never pitched cards or dealt a live action game before to just come in and be a bit slower and maybe make a few mistakes, you're fooling yourself.

They'll take over when video craps takes over from real craps

Too many conspiracy theorists out there for casinos to go 'virtual'. Although I really did enjoy my electronic table poker experience on a cruise .. both cash and tournament play went off with very little issue. Certainly could speed up the game and rebuy/add-ons for sure once you set up your credit line. GL

I'd imagine I could teach a class of high school algebra without any training more easily than I could work the drive thru at McDonalds without training.