In a Tunica room a player was tipping the dealer (his live-in girlfriend) $5-20 everytime he won a pot I complained to the floor and he put a stop to it, told the player to tip an average amount, that he couldn't take that much money off the table.

I disagree with this decision by the floor. What is an average amount? What if every player decides to tip $10, is that now the average? If everyone tips a quarter, is that now the average? If a player tips half their stack, do you call the floor? Is there a rule that states you cannot tip a dealer a certain amount of money. I do agree that what the player was doing was unethical, but not really against any rules.

Why would you imagine that it's a lot less than 6k for a fulltime player?

A "full time" dealer in a good location can make 50k a year in tips. We know that most dealers don't work a full 2080 hours a year. We know that when they do work, they're only in the box 70% of that time. So, lets be generous and assume they're in the box 1500 hours a year, dealing to an average of 8 players.

For each 1500 hour a year a player plays, they must pay 1/8th of 50k in tips -- 6,250

So, if a full time professional player plays 30 hours a week, he pays, on average, $6,250 a year in tips.

If a dealer makes only 40k/year in tips, the bill for a 30 hour a week player is still 5k/year.

As the professional grinders how many hours a year they play.

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A losing player saves nothing by not tipping. He's going to go broke anyway. Having $101 in his stack instead of $100 doesn't change the fact that he's going to go home with $0. It only means that sometimes he gets to play one more hand before going busto.

And while not every dollar that stays in the professional players stack equals one dollar saved, since he is a winning player, he goes home generally with money -- and sometimes not only does he keep the $1 he didn't tip, but he wins $1 more against his opponents sometimes. ...and he does this slightly more often (as a winning player) than he throws his last dollar bill in the pot. [If he's got the table covered, he always keeps the dollar. If he doesn't have the table covered, he usually keeps the dollar.]

For the professional poker player, dollars not tipped are dollars kept and generally used to win more dollars.

I think this thread does illustrate one very important point:

There are a fair number of professional nits and grinders out there who will intentionally work to reduce their dealers toke rate, under the belief that any money paid to the staff is "money off the table", which they believe means less money that they *themselves* can take off the table and out the door.

I am firmly of the belief that service to these players should be reduced, and if possible those players should be uninvited from the game.

The simple fact is: nits like this are very bad for the game. They tighten up the tables, kill the action and bust out the weaker players -- and, of course, **they also take money off the table** -- which, we are told, is "bad for the poker economy" (seriously: at least professional dealers provide a service, professional nits just take up a chair that could be going to a recreational player).

These professional nits are, imho, essentially leeches on the poker economy -- they camp out and kill games in order to avoid getting a job, and there *must* (by definition) be a large amount of money coming off the table every day to support their unemployed lifestyle. They view poker tables as their own personal welfare program, rather than a place to enjoy the company and the friendly competition of other recreational players.

And when they start to view other players money as "their money" (ie: their welfare check, their entitlement), and start trying to play games against the staff to increase their welfare check ... well, imho, at that point it is time for them to go.

The games are far better off without them.

q/q

BS, If you tipped $1 per hand, you would have to consistantly win 4 hands an hour to get that number. Nobody consistantly wins 4 hands an hour, nobody.

What is this? Bad math day?

Tipping $6250 a year while working 30 hours a week as a professional poker player requires you to average a $1 per hand tip 3.7 times per hour.

3.7 winning hands per hour per hour, times 8 average players at the table = 30 hands per hour.

Somebody wins those 30 hands and tips, on average, about a buck.

What you fail to realize is those dealers make the game clean for you to be ABLE to win. Now if you like, I can arrange a game for you to play where you dont tip ever. And believe me when I say so, you will never take a single dollar off the table.

Whilst many here will never understand this, the reason the dealer is there is to protect the INTEGRITY of YOUR GAME. THATS IT, nothing more. The mechanics of same are be definition a small portion of this act. You dont want to go back to the 80's and earlier where finding an honest game even with a dealer was hard to do.

I suggest, as a professional, you may want to tip or continue tipping. It may be just that small portion that helps keep the game possible for you to beat at a nice clip. As dealer pay goes down, good dealers move on. Good dealers, know how to protect your game.

That's not really a valid theoretical model.

Losing players have a negative winrate, which they're generally willing to tolerate because they derive entertainment out of the gambling. If having $1 in his stack makes the bad player stay longer by an expected value of h hours, then that $1 adds to the the game h * - (that player's winrate), which is probably not > $1. But that's not the same as $1, because not every losing player sets aside a finite amount of money and blows through it until it's gone. Some do, but not all.

Also some of us tip while playing this weird poker variant called fixed-limit poker where losing players are allowed to finish winner on any given night.

You don't understand me.

I'm not suggesting that dealers are or aren't paid enough. Dealers will do the job if they think they get enough, and competition for skilled dealers will exist in markets where dealers are well compensated. ¡Viva la mercado libre!

I'm only saying:

• Full-time (or near-full-time) dealers make $x/year.
• Full-time (or near-full-time) players pay about 1/8th of $x/year.

It's a mostly zero-sum game.

I think we agree on entertainment value and hours played.

But the $1 not tipped (for whatever reason) stays in play, and is available to the winning player to eventually take home sometime.

In a much simpler example: If the games were unraked, and dealt by monks with vows of poverty and service, a hundred dollars or so an hour would be left on the table, and the winrates of winning players would increase.

The more dollars that stay in poker games and don't go to pay dealer's mortgages, the better for the players.

...and again, I'm not suggesting the dealers should get to pay their mortgages by working hard at their profession; I'm just trying to dispel the myth that dollars not tipped don't end up eventually in the pockets of a minority of winners (including, eventually, the rake - a sure-fire winner).

It's not a personality change. It's just what I think when a person tips at the end of a down, and how much.

And why doesn't the thought of "What am I doing wrong?" enter your head? Why are you assuming the problem is with your customer? Are you really so awesome at dealing that the problem has to lie with the customers? Or perhaps he's European (or some other nationality where tipping is not the norm) and not use to tipping so in his mind a $1 for the down is a huge tip.

Um someone wins every hand.

How many hands are there in an hour? How many players? Avg player wins = hands per hour / # of players.

One would hope a pro has higher than average win rate right?

Try redoing your match and I think you will find 4 per hour isn't "impossible". Nobody said 4 giant pots per hour, or 4 showdowns per hour but 4 hands.

If everyone was average, if it was 10 handed you figure 1 in 10 hands. There are probably 30 or so hands an hour live. (Maybe more with an automatic shuffler) That would be about 3 hands an hour. 4 Hands is not unreasonable at all as you said. If it was 9 handed then it is even more likely to win 4 hands an hour. That could be $4 or more an hour that is lost to tips.

Depending on the game in question, both the variant (NLHE, LHE, PLO, LO8...) and the players in question, a pro might well win fewer pots than average. In loose games you should generally be trying to win fewer, bigger pots. In weak tight games you should generally be trying to win a bunch of abandoned pots and a few big ones when people get suspicious.

Well, beating even terrible opponents and the rake takes some work, so it's not strictly a hand-out. I do agree that the sense of entitlement on 2+2, as though the gravy train will never end so who cares if the fish bust quickly?, is a little disgusting at times.

I was playing at parx casino when, in the middle of a big hand, a player facing a raise on the flop was tanking, so I got up to take a quick leak. I got back before the hand was over, and I noticed the dealer had clocked me out on his Bravo system. I didnt say anything, as it was a big hand, and I wanted to see what the dealer was going to do. After he pushed the pot, the next dealer tapped him and he got up and left. Never clocked me back in. I hadn't even missed a single hand! About a month ago, the same dealer clocked me out when I got up to throw away my empty water bottle.

Needless to say, this dealer will not be getting tips from me for awhile, and I will purposely get up when he is dealing to see if he continues this behavior. I understand they're supposed to put us in " lobby" when we're away from the game, but this guy is ridiculous.

This was in a 1/3 game and forgot to mention that the player over tipping was also a dealer at the casino who was propping. And you can not remove $20 from your stack to give to a friend, wife, girlfriend etc. so why should you be able to remove this from the game by giving it a dealer who is a girlfriend? When another dealer was in the box he was only tipping $1 a hand.

If he never tipped anyone else higher than $1 that is shady. I was under an impression that this was a permanent dealer. He should probably lose his propping privilege if he does things like that.

Now if he tipped every dealer $20 would you have been ok with it?

And who's to say that the player in question isn't a regular who is well known amongst the dealers for tipping a single dollar per down, to every single dealer.

This. I've tried to explain this before. With very similar breakdowns of the figures. For some reason, I get ignored, probably because people hate losing arguments and because my thinking goes against this site's mantra, which is that WINRATES COME BEFORE ALL ELSE.

If someone played full time, played well, and followed a TAG style like most do on this site, they'd average winning about 3 hands per hour, not 4, at a table which was generally nine or ten handed. With 2000 hours a year, which few come anywhere near to begin with, this would be 6000 hands won per year.

However, many of these pots from a 2p2er WOULD BE POTS YOU DON'T TIP ON ANYWAY. 2p2'ers will have a lot of tiny wins in their 6000 hands-won, in the form of taking down limps, stealing blinds or uncontested flop/turn wins heads up where the profit portion of their pot is very little. They wouldn't be tipping in these pots anyway, so they aren't saving anything by not tipping.

It's ludicrous to assume that your average 1/2 NL player can make $6000 a year just by not tipping. This is completely silly. Look at the percentage of people who even are winning players over the course of a year, period. Then look at how many win at a razor thin margin and couldn't make $6000 anyway. Is it really reasonable to think that your AVERAGE player doesn't even need to worry about playing, they can just sit at a table and add $6000 to their bottom line by not tipping?

FWIW his figure initially in this discussion in a different thread was $8k-$12k, which apparently was downgraded for what I can only assume was a realization of it being comically ridiculous.

Winning hands doesn't correlate to a winrate. Think about this. Your average pro likely wins fewer hands than loose, horrendous players at the same table.

My state has two poker rooms. At one the dealers keep their tips . At the other the dealers pool their tips.

At the keeper room the dealers are younger, less experienced, strive to please and think they are there to entertain you. They tell lame jokes, talk about their recent golf tournament, make comments such as "The players at this end of the table are playing very tight." They watch and comment about the events on TV. Basicly some of them never shut up! And they make alot of mistakes.

At the older, tip pooling room, the dealers are more experienced ,deal professionally, concentrate on the game and keep the idle chatter to a minimum.

The younger players prefer the younger dealers and tip accordingly. I guess I have been playing for too many years but I prefer the well run, no dealer talk games.

Recently I played at the tip keeper room. They have a high hand jackpot for the best hand over a four hour period.

A new dealer came to the table and announced that the high hand was now nearly $3000. He then said that he expected a 10% tip if he dealt the jackpot!
WHAT!!!

I won a pot a few hands later, tipped this dealer and he failed to say the standard "Thank You." I then noticed that he never said thanks for any tips. I was quietly hoping for the high hand simply so that I could stiff this dealer.

I now only play at the older tip pooling room. I tip $1 every hand, even when I just pick up the blinds. The dealers are working for a living and the tips are most of their pay.

If they want to blatantly hustle for their tips, I wont stiff them. I just wont play at that room.

Yes I would in a 1/3 game when the average stack at the table was $200. Too much money coming off the table.

You can try to slice the math all you want, but SOMEONE is tipping dealers $x per hour, and the average player is paying his percentage of it.

And the 3-hands-not-4 thing is nonsense. It takes one single $5 tip in a big pot per day to correct that average.

And, seriously, the argument is that you only tip $3 an hour, and a full-time player, as such, only tips $4-5k/year, not 6k?

Dealers are worth what the market will bear, but stop pretending that we don't have to pay them, or that the money appears magically from the sky or only from the pockets of fishy players. It comes out of our pockets. We shoulder the burden of paying them in exchange for the service we receive.