Your last line is incorrect. The law changed in 2009 that dealers in Great Britain could be tipped on top of their wages.

Most dealers here would prefer to refuse to acknowledge you period.

Played a $165 ($150 buyin, $10 rake, $5 "dealer appreciation" fee) tournament at a local club. When it got down to 3-handed, I was 2nd in chips and we decided to chop and each leave $100 in the middle to play for. My take was $950 ($1050-$100). I tipped $100 (as did the other two players) and feel in retrospect that that was way too generous. What would a more appropriate tip have been?

Tip whatever you feel is appropriate.

And in the future, you will receive the service that the staff feels is appropriate based on the pay they received for their previous efforts.

Somewhere in the middle, an equilibrium will be reached.

Influence it as you see fit, for better or for worse.

That's this thread in a nutshell.


q/q

You netted ~$800 and tipped 12% of that.

Did the tourney run all day? How many players? How many tables?

From your information I will try to extrapolate.

Only pay the top 3? That means $3150 pool, or 21 players.

Dealers already have $105 in the tip pool.

Start with 3 tables. Say 3 tables for an hour. 2 tables for an hour. 1 table for an hour. 6 dealer-hours total.

They have "already" been tipped $16/hr with the $5/player fee

If you each tip $30, that would bring it up to $31/hr.

If you each tip $100, that would bring it up to $66/hr.

Again, I am only assuming on the actual numbers of players/tables/hours.

But you can see how to approximate how the dealers are compensated and then decide yourself what the dealer is "worth".

No, those numbers are the minimum they'd have to charge to make the same money they're making now -- but it's silly to pretend they've arrived at the current rake based on how much money they'd like to make and what percentage profit they expect in return.

They already rake as much as they possibly can. If after dealer tipping were (hypothetically for purposes of this discussion) outlawed, they'd still charge exactly what they do now -- not in dollars, but in that they'll charge exactly as much as the market will bear.

If that's $1 more, or $1 earlier, or $10 more, it's what they'll charge. They don't have, need, or necessarily desire to keep the rake static -- only to keep raking as much as they can. Not as much as they do now. AS MUCH AS THEY CAN.

Dealer pay has almost nothing to do with the rake and time charges. Why does anyone want to pretend they're somehow tied together?

If your casino thought they'd get just as much play for $1 more per pot in rake, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

1-4% of tourney winnings is considered standard by cardplayer.com iirc.

Personally I have seen both sides of this argument from personal experience. I have played poker for a living before (for 2 years till the wind blew me in a different direction) and currently deal poker at a casino for a living.

I can honestly say the money I make dealing is some of the easiest money I have made at any job short of playing for a living when viewed from a work/education standpoint vs money received point of view. I can also say that it has been one of the hardest skills to truly master to the level that I hold myself too.

I strive to constantly improve my dealing, to speed it up, to find more efficient ways to do things within the constraints of casino expectation on procedure. I enforce all our house rules every time, attempt to be as friendly as the table dynamic requests, and more than anything appreciate every tip I receive regardless of size. At my last evaluation I was clocked at averaging 19 hands per half hour.

I do this because I have been on the other side frequently. I know exactly how much of a difference to my play experience a good dealer makes. I always thought of how impressive it was when you had a dealer get into the box who was rock solid and fast in everything they did. I hold myself to that mental ideal when I deal and try and be that dealer.

You are all talking about the moral this or that, social obligation/expectation of tipping vs salary. To me it comes down to a very simple question.

Is it worth it to you, to ship a dealer like me $1, out of the money you just won in playing a GAME, which through insight or luck you won, using a skill no harder to master than mine, in exchange for the experience I provide and hands per hour?

If the answer to that question is no, then keep the $1 with my blessing and sympathy, because you obviously need that $1 far more than I do.

Which is precisely my point.


q/q

Well, then your point is silly.

What they make now just happens to be what they make now, not some idealized amount or some cost model they figured out to cover room expenses.

It's simply the most they can possibly rake without losing business.

They'd raise rake 20% today if it only cost them 19.9% of their business long-term.

And again, you are making my point for me.

No rational business is going to introduce a new compensation model if it reduces their profits.

Therefore: any alternative to the current tip-based system *must* -- at a bare minimum -- at least include rake increases sufficient to cover its own increased costs (relative to the current model). Anything *even slightly* less than that, and businesses would have to eat a loss in order to adopt it (which they won't do).


q/q

While that might be true, it doesn't bar any other number of pay models that they could adopt that might generate them the same or more money.

Why? Because I told the truth about how I feel about a person who's too cheap to tip?

QuadsOverQuads, I tried to tell you The Palimax refuses to acknowledge that casinos will not cut into their own current profits to boost staff salary by millions of dollars per year. You're wasting your time.

You insistence on presuming what I think (and constantly getting it wrong) is fairly annoying.

Do I think we're going to see some radical change in the way that dealers are paid in existing US casinos anytime soon (since they already pay them as little as possible)? No. Absolutely not.

Do I think that there's better ways to do it, especially in emerging markets? Yes. Absolutely so.

Also, you talk about "millions of dollars a year" like that number means something to any business of sufficient size.

Just LOL at this

from the Parx Classic on the structure sheet I noticed

"Parx will extract 3% of the players buyin for poker dealers"

Now the question is knowing that 3% of the prize pool is already getting withheld for tips, what is appropriate to tip if you win/cash well?

For simple discussion sake assume you just won 100k

If only 1% was withheld I would definitely tip a little extra, and if it was 5% I wouldn't tip a penny. 3% is in a spot where I'm not sure what I would do though.

I feel that you gotta tip the dealer something.

I cashed $700 once playing a tournament and gave a $50 tip. Sounds about right eh?

3% of a $5k tourney is obviously more than 3% of a $500 tourney...I doubt there is a huge difference in the quality of service though...

That's another good point. Do you tip less of a % as first place gets bigger?

question I'm asking though is what about when a % is withheld. If you found out they'd already been tipped and that money came straight out of what you woulda been paid are you still tipping 50?

Good question, the tips are already built in so I guess it depends.

I'd probably tip them anyway.

I don't know, I'm superstitious so I always think the dealers contributed to my cash in some "cosmic" way.

If I won big I'd definitely toss them a tip but it would be way less if I knew their tips were coming off the top.

I would ask the TD two questions:

1. With the 3% takeout and base salary, what are the dealers making per down/hour for the tournament
2. How many ways (ie dealer hours/downs) would my tip get chopped up

Then you can make an informed decision. If the TD refuses to answer, I don't leave anything.

I always tip in cash games, but if there's a tip built into the tournament fee I think it's perfectly fine not to tip more when you cash. Just think of all the times when you didin't even cash and you still tipped the dealers through your entry fee.

Played at a small time casino last night and shortly after sitting, the dealers rotated but left their tip bucket at the table andI asked
"do you guys share/pool your tips here"?

Immediately, the dealer looked at me and sternly said he couldn't talk about that. I assume they were in fact pooled, and that discouraged me tipping for the night. I still did when I won a big pot but I did less often than normal.

Are dealers really not allowed to talk about such things? Was I out of line?

Bonus question:bad or good idea to leave suggestions with the floor regarding the way they run the games?

The answer from the dealer should have been a simple yes or no. Also, rooms that have their dealers share tips are usually bad rooms.

Many rooms have strict rules about dealers talking about tips. Repeated offenses can result in losing their job.

On the other hand, if you see a tip bucket left at the table and the new dealer isn't carrying one, it is pretty clear that they share tips. No need to ask. Of course you can ask a floor about any procedure you're unclear about.