My friend is a service advisor. His pay is based on how much service he sells. Probably the more service you get done on your car, the more Gus get paid.

Ok. Maybe my amount is a bit outrageous, but. We are talking going from $5/hr(where I work) to something like $25-$30/hr. You're not going to get there by adding a buck to the rake. Let's say it's a small room that has only one game going at a lot of times and you've always got one dealer on break. You have to take an extra $50-60/hr off that game to pay this increased wage. That's an extra $2/hand right there(every hand, not just when pots are big enough). What about when there's a tourney going and this room has 1 or 2 cash games going and 4 tourney tables. Now you have to pay 7 dealers all $25/hr and most of it is going to come out of those cash games, because who's going to play a tourney where the buy-in is $40 + $25 entry fee? Most tourney downs are only generating ~$15/hr so with 4 tourney tables I am short $10/hr on each table. That's $40/hr more I need to generate out of the cash games to cover tourney dealers plus however much extra I need to pay the dealers on the cash games and on break.

This may be a lot easier for a bigger room that has 15+ games running at any given time, but most rooms across the country are smaller.

And no more reduced rake on short handed games.


More like $3 a hand minimum. No matter how big the pot is. I promise the casino will not risk footing the bill for the increased wage, so they will pad it a little in their favor. Just in case.

It's really weird how stingy these big casinos really are. We have a zero overtime rule at our property. Even for dealers who are being paid $5/hr. That time and a half is a killer.

Is it unreasonable to pay dealers on break $5/hr and dealers in the box $30/hr? After all, when you're on break now, not too many people are tossing you a buck every two minutes.

The whole question was based on what a dealer makes in tips per hour on average. That includes breaks, so yes I would say it is unreasonable to pay dealers on break $5/hr. As an example... with tips they may average $30/hr while actually in the box, but when you factor in their breaks it's more like $25.

It's contentious because in the minds of some, the frequency and amount of your tips is a measure of how good a person you are. In other words: the practice of tipping gets divorced from the theory of tipping.

That's not my contention at all. Please don't put words into my mouth.

I think wages and performance are out of whack in just about every profession, with the only reliable exception being people who are self employed.

I always figured "tips per hour on average" was while in the box.


Indeed.

I didn't put any words into your mouth. You said, "Outside of tipping professions, I don't see where pay and job performance are linked, other than loosely at best."

Then your further supported your position by saying that negotiations at hiring is what earns you higher pay rather than job performance in occupations that are non-tipped. I then asked you to clarify if you thought tipped professions provide the most accurate means of suitable compensation.

Actually, you said "ideal", which is different from "better" or "not as awful".

Actually, while it's not quite the same thing as tips, in most places service advisers are usually on some type of commission (or base + commission/bonus) pay plan. And the variance between the highest paid advisers and lowest paid advisers, even at the same location & working similar hours/shifts, can be HUGE.

If Gus has customers coming in asking for him, I'd expect he's probably quite comfortably in the upper end for advisers at his location.

I don't think it's automatically unreasonable to have two different pay rates, one while dealing and another while on break, rather than an overall blended hourly rate. Obviously a blended rate rate greatly simplifies the bookkeeping, but a tiered rate gives a more precise accounting of labor costs.

After all, it's not exactly unheard of, that for many hourly wage workers, they're expected to clock-out for breaks/lunch/etc.

Very true, but then you go back to dealers having to work the crappy shifts to make more money cuz they get more time in the box and in turn they'd then rather take tips than a set wage... Dealers make good money because they work every weekend and late at night. It makes for having no life away from work. IMO of course. Give them a chance to make close to the same money and not have to pull that crappy schedule and i think most would take it.

I'm making these numbers up but the ratio I think is about correct... Working for tips, a dealer doing up/downs may make a total of $20/hr while a dealer doing a 6 table push is going to be making $35/hr.

It probably varies from state to state, but I'm pretty sure a ft employee is entitled to two 15 minute breaks a day while on the clock. It's common for an employee to take lunch while off the clock.

At my work, I never clock out. On the other hand, I can be pulled out of the break room at any time, even in the middle of a meal, to go open a table.

Ok. I don't post in the forums often and have only posted in this particular thread once, some time ago. But I read this thread often and just have to chime in.

Lester, I think it is very possible that you are OVERstating your true value, possibly to explain or justify your reasons for not tipping or for tipping less than the norm. I'm not a professional dealer but I have dealt for tips at underground games and I do not believe that your being attentive and quick, or even helpful, adds very much (if anything) to the bottom line of the dealers. Your money, your choice how much to tip. Absolutely. I don't even think you have to justify it. But this argument, in my opinion, is ridiculous.

I am generous in all aspects of my life. And I take extreme exception to the fact that you are saying that, by being so, I am either letting myself be taken advantage of or am simply too naive to figure it out. Neither is the case!! To further insinuate that you are more intelligent for being able to figure out it out . . . That is insulting! But, at the end of the day, you are as free to draw your conclusions and judgements about me as a generous person as I am of you as a cheap person who doesn't adhere to certain societal expectations.

I know it's different everywhere, but in places with a punch clock that auto-deduct 30 minutes from any shift over 5 hours (maybe 6?), if they grab you from break early, they have to short break you, which means you get paid for that full time as though you never punched out. That's how it worked at the last Hyatt I worked at. I would never mind getting called back early as I was normally done eating within a few minutes anyway (lolbad cafeteria food) it meant both that I got paid for that 30 minutes (lol well under minimum wage) and that I had some immediate work to do and get tipped for.

You may want to check up on that. Not only is it good to know anyway, but you might save yourself 20 or 30 bucks at the end of the year and you can treat the lady to something nice =P

That's how it works at my place. They auto deduct 30 minutes at 5 hours worked. Once a week I work a 6 hour shift which is two tournaments straight through with maybe one 15 minute break. So I always get "sent home" but instead of clocking out right away I wait until I have "worked" 6 1/2 hours. If they are going to deduct a lunch I better damn well get a lunch

It's absolutely incredible that this is general practice in big corporations because people are too sheepish to do anything about it. Glad you do what you gotta go. I mean, the correct thing is say "I didn't take lunch" to HR every single day and see how long it goes.


I did one job for a Marriott where we signed stuff when we were hired saying that we work 8 hours straight and that we don't get lunch. We would just find little 10 minute lulls in the action and send one guy at a time to the cafeteria to stuff his face as fast as possible. It was a nice system, honestly.

I'll stop with the non-tipping derail now

This thread continues to be hilarious.

Count me as a dealer who enjoys Lester at the table. I can think of one of his type from my last gig. Never toked, but was always a pleasure. Kept aware of the action, helped others out, friendly to and supportive of everybody, and overall just a mensch.

I mean, it's not like we're in danger of everybody converting over to his method, so who cares? There is variety at every poker table, and I appreciate having an ally like Lester in the mix. Most non-tippers ironically require more assistance and cause more problems at the table than the average player, which does follow a perverse logic, but Lester doesn't seem to be in that camp.

Keep on keepin' on, dude. You're good for the game, and I respect your position.

Just don't move the button, okay?

Iowa doesn't guarantee that you'll get any breaks unless you need to use the restroom.

Just wondering what an appropriate tip is for the following situation:

$50 buyin tournament. First place is $665.

One of the dealers said my thought of $50 was too much, that $25 was more than enough.

So I tipped $25. And feel like it was too low.

Thoughts?

You didn't state if they withheld a % for dealers, but $50 is fine. Whatever you want to leave is fine. It sounds like there was dealer vig, so $25 was probably more than most leave.

i just know it was $38+$12 ... not sure how much of that $12 goes to dealers.

That vig is sick. Do not play. If you insist, do not tip. Is this a charity tournament?

yeah, i know it's high.

it's a weekly PLO tournament at the local casino. only chance i have to play PLO live. i was on vacation and did it for fun

$38+12 is a standard sorta vig for the very low-priced tournaments in my experiences. If it includes a built-in gratuity, it's a pretty good vig at 24%. If it does not, it's not so great but still not completely out of line with Vegas daily tourneys.

Example vigs from Vegas daily tournaments pulled from AVP where I assume when computing percentages you'll take the dealer-gratuity add-on for additional chips:

Bally's: $42 prizepool +18 vig + 0 addon (30%)
Harrah's: $42+18+0 (30%)
MGM: $35+15+0 (30%)
Caesars: $50+20+0 (29%)
MB: $40+10+5 (27%)
Rio: $52+18+0 (26%)
Mirage $50+10+5 (23%)

This is why nobody in their right mind tries to play the Vegas small daily tournaments to make a living. Even if you can absolutely crush the tourists, it's still a pretty poor hourly by the time the vig comes out.

I think probably 99% of poker tournaments have some sort of built-in tokes for the dealers. In the tournaments above only two have explicit dealer-gratuity addons, but for those that do not I believe they just pay the dealers a slice of the listed vig. The dealers aren't going home empty-handed if none of the winners tip.

I'd guess if a dealer told ibelieve that $50 was too much, they probably are already getting a slice of the pie somehow.

That's a lot of juice. Brutal.