Yes, I know all of this. None of it says what kind of percentage actually should be tipped though and whether that percentage should change based on the time the tourney takes, etc.

Whatever percentage they take out before is something I'd rather subtract from my tip rather than replace my tip.

If you really want to be conscientious about this issue and tip according to what the dealers expect from dealing tourneys v. cash, AngusThermopyle had a good post early on in this thread about the questions you should ask when you discuss the tournament with the tournament director.

Question

You hit a royal flush jackpot for 10k.

What are you tipping?

looking for personal opinions

I'd probably tip at least $1 or $2 for each hand the dealer missed as a result of the game stopping/slowing down to get you paid out, plus a little extra.

Every dealer I know would be livid if you gave them anything less than a hundo in that scenario.

And he/she might talk **** about me behind my back too. Some things you just can't let bother you or you'd go insane.

That's because tipping is optional, so you "should" tip based on how well you felt the tourney was run, not an amount you feel others expect you should tip.

But if you're looking for general figures that will ensure you're greeted with smiles on your next visit, then it's pretty easy: 10% or more on $1K or less; 5-10% up to $10K, and 3-5% on anything above $10K.

2% on jackpots in general IMO.

10% seems like it's going to severely cut into my ROI.

Heh, you'll get no argument from me, but you wanted to know what you should tip, and that's pretty much what's expected. If they charge a 3% vig for dealers and staff, then cut it down to 7%.

$300

Well, I'm not really looking for how much they expect the average fish to tip so much as what is actually fair. It's a much different situation for someone who's there just to have fun versus someone who's playing poker to make a living. I don't think it's appropriate for me to not tip at all, but I'm also not going to participate on the standard overtipping that I fully support recreational players doing but will not do myself. Currently, I'm tipping 1% on top of the add on, which is about 3%.

Mostly it's just a case of being very uncertain about where to strike the balance.

Another question is whether I should tip more when there's an overlay.

Say you are on a one table SnG. $1000 + $25. Ten handed. They take 3% out of the pool for tips.. Say it takes two hours.

$10K pool. 3% for tips is $300. For two hours.

You really feel that you should tip 1% of first place on top of that?

This is why any discussion of a fixed percentage is next to meaningless.

It's been hashed out quite a bit in this thread that pros should not tip less because we use the money to live on. I think one dealer said they don't owe us a living or some such nonsense.

I think the numbers I gave for MTT's are pretty accurate. If you want to chisel away at some of those amounts until some dealers start piping up here, then that may be a good way of finding the optimal numbers.

From a player perspective, I'm not sure what you mean by balance? If they're taking out 3% for dealers/staff, then the balance has already been struck. If you feel like tipping more, then *anything* above the dealer vig taken is being very generous.

Once again, just decide how you felt the tourney was run and tip extra accordingly. You could even ask how many dealers dealt the tourney and tip an amount for each dealer.

That seems to be the standard at the room i deal in. We have seperate jackpots for each suit. We've had then get up as high as 15k but thy usually hit between 7k-10k.

Weve had guys give 1k and others $100.

i even as a dealer cant see giving more than $500. because face it. That is a decent chunck of money.

I deff agree with your logic...but how does your answer change if you hit the BBJ for 200k?

It doesn't. But I'd end up tipping more because the big payouts usually stop the play for longer and therefore the dealer would lose more hands.

The thing is that it's easy to get a reasonable baseline for cash games but not for tournaments. I can tip $1 a hand and maybe $2 or $3 on big pots and accept that I'm tipping fairly, and this is how plenty of non profitable regs will tip as well, regardless of whether or not some fish are tipping $5-$20 a hand. That's them overtipping, and it's none of my business and I even am glad that they're giving the dealers some money. When it comes to tournaments, I have no such baseline though. 10% seems like the tournament equivalent of giving dealer $20 in a $400 pot you contribute half the money to though. Simply ridiculous.

Also, the point of playing poker even for non pros is to win. It doesn't matter if the person is a pro or not, if tipping makes the game unbeatable then people are tipping too much.

Again, no arguments from me, but in MTT's the guidelines I gave are fairly standard from my experience with dealers. The concept at work here is similar to jackpots - win a lot, tip a lot, think very little. In cash games, the tips you recommended is pretty widely accepted as fair, but when people score 20+ times more than they bought in for and get it all in one lump, then the 10% figure starts to rear its head.

It's great for dealers when recs tip out 5-10% of a single pot in a cash game, but from a business standpoint, you really don't want recs giving your future money away like that.

The biggest problem with tipping that I've seen in smaller buy-in MTTs is that the players that cash don't necessarily tip unless they're either the first place winner or if they're chopping 6 ways or something and on or two guys tipping comes up in front of everyone else. I know lot of people that go up by themselves to claim their 7th place prize don't tip at all, assuming the first place guy will be doing the tipping (at least that's what he tells himself).

I always feel bad for the dealers that get undertipped but I know and understand they get overtipped quite a bit from time to time.

In general, I wish that it would be widely done for the tip just coming out of a set percentage of the buy-in.

That's a short step from including dealer pay in the rake, you know.

Find me this example in ANY casino. It's probably not happening. $300 for 2 hours would mean $75 per down for a dealer, sorry, NOT happening. That would mean only 4 dealers dealt in this particular tournament. And, where do you see a 1 Table SnG for that much money in ANY casino, and only lasting 6 levels at best?

Oh, and that whole 3% that everyone is talking about ... The dealers don't even SEE close to 3%!

Everyone is under the misconception that this 'supposed 3%' is going DIRECTLY to the dealers. It is NOT. It gets split more ways than you can imagine! There's the Tournament Directors, Cage Personnel and other employees that this '3% dealer tip' gets whacked up amongst.

Any poker dealer will tell you, after all is said and done, they are lucky to get $6-9 per tournament down.

And with all the talk being done on 2+2 lately, more and more players are not tipping AT ALL after cashing in tournaments thinking that the 3% or whatever each casino takes off the top is going directly to the dealers. Therefore, dealers are now making CONSIDERABLY LESS than what they might have made in the past or should be making.

I recently heard that a guy won like $50k in an event and tipped ZERO after cashing. I mean, really?

When those 12-15 day events are taking place, ALL the tournament downs are added up and EVERY dealer has to rely on the extremely small percentage that they get plus whatever players who cash decide to tip. Believe me, it's a LOT less than you think ...

So, yes, a fixed percentage IS almost meaningless. I don't know the answer to this whole mess, but I'm sure everyone will continue to debate it!

It's obviously not a realistic scenario, but he used an extreme example to prove a point, which is that you can't just go by a fixed %, every situation is different. You seem to have missed that.

As an absolute statement this is completely false. It varies widely by casino. In some, the dealers do see the whole 3%. In others, the dealers see none of it. And in yet others, they see only some of it.

If the house takes it out of the prize pool and it is advertised as going to the dealers, it had better all go to the dealers. If not, the dealers should contact Gaming.

If it just says "staff" and if the TD is pocketing 2/3 of it, then maybe the dealers should do something about it.

Or are you suggesting that the players should do the dealers' fighting for them?

I don't see 3% of anything where I work...