Sounds like the employees at competing casino were extremely unprofessional if anyone besides the dealer that dealt the BBJ knows how much was tipped.

Not if he was tipped at the table or in front of other regs.

more like the vast majority of poker players at that dealer's home casino are scumbags

however, I'm not sure if I'm buying the story - how many people are showing up to a low paying menial job the day after crushing a life-changing windfall

This last part. I totally believe the story, and I've been around poker rooms enough to know that this guy was probably looking for an excuse to quit after getting 7-8 years worth of salary in one day. I'm surprised he even showed up to his next shift.

$280k isn't enough to quit your job and live off of without a plan. Even with a conservative investment strategy it's probably not enough to quit your day job.

I read "wins 700K"


Yeah, 280 is a lot less, but most dealers are degens and would gladly take a few months off to reward themselves.

The information was that he didn't miss any shifts and the non-tipping carried on for almost 2 months before he decided to quit. What we don't know is how he carried himself before and/or after the win which may have swayed the masses against him. As we all know, there is always more to a story the further down the line the story travels since only the juicy details travel 'well'. GL

I find it hard to believe that all those players, acting together, were so upset that the dealer didn't tip enough on a BBJ that they all stopped tipping completely. First, because I find it hard to believe that an entire population of poker players would even tip a BBJ at all, much less be upset at a dealer who tipped $400. Just look at the range of comments from players in this thread about whether players should tip a BBJ at all. Second, most people are decent people and would feel bad taking advantage of the dealer's work for free by not tipping him. I just find it hard to believe that would happen every hand for every down for a whole day, much less two months.

OTOH, I could more likely believe the idea that the word of a dealer winning $280k spread around, regardless of tip, and players feeling like "this guy is rich so he doesn't need my buck" and not tipping. Sort of like if they heard that a dealer had won millions in the lotto, but was still working for something to do while he figured out how to spend all his money, would they still tip him? IMO it is more likely that they would use his win as an excuse to stop tipping "because he doesn't need it anymore" than the fact that they are so upset that he "only" gave a dealer $400 and that upset them SOOOOO much that they want to punish the dealer and drive him out of the job. It would be a pretty unique group of players in that room that would be so offended by what they considered a low tip for a dealer in another room. That just seems unbelievable to me.

The casino in question is Harrah's in Joliet, IL. They pool tips there, so I don't think it's unprofessional for all dealers working that shift to want to know who tipped what.

And I talked to one of the dealers that worked that shift, he said combined they made about $4,000 from the table, which he said was disappointing for all of the dealers.

$4,000 of free money from a player-only invested fund, and they are disappointed? Lol dealers.

Yeah this seems like a crazy amount of entitlement to me.

+2

Dealers locally "hope" (iow, expect from us) about 3% of a BBJ. Which is equal to a player's share almost. (We are 9 handed and split 50:25:25 so full table player share is 25/3 or 3.6%)

I have never been lucky enough to be on the table for a BBJP but can promise you, the dealer (they don't pool) will not be getting even close to that much from me.

A word to them, if you get 1% of my money feel lucky.

BTW, here there a 3 immediately local casinos with current BBJPs of $80K, $225k and $290k. So the "expectations" are 2400, 6750, 8700. So they "expect" just from the "loser" over $4k in the biggest one. Not gonna happen if it is me.

Motor City Casino ... $1,010,000.00 right now (Quad/Quad) ... table only ... 40/20/40.

$30K tip? ... It will be interesting ...

Anybody need a short-term job and want to 'play' the odds? No tournaments at this casino and they just got onto Bravo if you want to follow along. GL

I'll bet the person who tokes out $30K with a smile on his face will cry and moan about having to pay 6-figs to the tax man.

I believe I know the story that you're talking about as I work at the casino in between the 2 in question. As with many things of this nature, there are many differing stories that get tossed around. So many that the only person who knows the truth is the player himself. But FWIW, what I learned at the time was that the payout was bigger, his tip was infinitely smaller, and the timeframe of him leaving his job was shorter.

Yep, that's the one. As I said above, the facts get skewed from so many stories, but at least one truth was that the dealers were disappointed. The total number that I heard was much lower than 4k. Then their BBJ hit again a few months later and they were again disappointed.

Sounds like they need to adjust their expectations.

They would get taken care of better if they kept their own

I normally like to stay out of this thread and try to stay in the breakroom thread but I feel like I need to chime in here over some stuff said in the previous pages .

As a dealer we have to put up with a lot while at work. Between running a smooth, efficient and fair game and dealing with usually half a table of grown adults acting like four year olds or flat out berating me for their own mistakes. But thats okay.....its what I signed up for when I started dealing and my philosophy is that if players are venting their frustrations on me they arent venting towards other players which drives players away.

As far as tips go personally every tip is valued....whether you are generous or cheap ass every dollar keeps a roof over my head and food in my belly and I am grateful. What I dont appreciate are players who stiff and act like total asshats at the table making my job much harder and making the players not enjoy being there. If you are going to act like a jackass at least thorw me a bone and dont treat other players like ****

As far as what I expect....some may not like to hear this but I would like an average of a $1 a hand..what I expect might be considered too much by some of you but in return of performing a good job I expect to make a good living to warrant dealing. And as far as $1 a hand I also have to tip out 7% towards floor staff and chip runners and tip out towards the cage staff so $1 a hand covers not only myself but others I have to tip out. That being said If I make a mistake or have a down where I dont perform up to my expectations I dont expect much from the players.....however my personal standards and integrity will generally be much higher than what most resonable players expect.

As far as hands per hour expecting a dealer to push out as many as possible it leads to mistakes players would benefit from not expecting maximum hands per hour and instead focus on quality. I personally set a goal of 16-18 hands a down and 12-15 in omaha. I could deal more but sets myself up to making mistakes that hurts not only myself but hurts the game. If you have a dealer that doesnt meet your expectations but deals a smooth game thats all you can ask.

As far as tournaments go, dealing tournaments means less for our bottom line however I still strive to provide the best expierence and run the best game I can. Yes most if not all tourneys anymore have a portion of the buyin towards dealers but that doesnt go very far when we factor in tourney director payout, cage tipout and other extras much like bartenders tipping out cooks and what not. Even if there is a percent taken out towards dealers at buy in you should still tip out a few bucks if you cash even a min cash should warrant a few bucks.

As far as what I saw a few pages back when someone mentioned that anyone could do my job and that to save a few bucks a stoner would be suitable you are so wrong. Would you really want someone who doesnt give two ****s about dealing handling your money and costing you hundreds due to being inattentive at the table just to save a few bucks in the short run. And if you think anyone could do my job I laugh at that as well because it takes an amount of thick skin and humilty to peform my job that very few people can provide. Most players think they can deal but in the few short years I have dealt I have witnessed at least half a dozen players who tried to deal and couldnt handle it.

Basically to sum up my post that spending a few bucks on tokes in the short run will provide dealers will provide competent and fair dealers in your games that will benefit your bottom line, benefit the games which your bottom line depends on and will benefit a poker room as a whole If you skimp out on that players run the risk of running good dealers out and having people who dont have what it takes to manage their games.

Maybe so, but I think it's a cross between expectation and hopefulness. It's a situation where you always want more. It's sort of like a golfer that plays a good round, but no matter how well you play there's a shot somewhere that could have turned out better and taken a shot off your score. Even if the total toke number was pretty good, they're going to point to one guy at the table who didn't tip anything or only gave $5 or so.

This is why the whole situation makes me sick. As a player, I think BBJs are a total ripoff, and I hate the fact that they exist. I have never won one, and probably never will, so they have taken tens of thousands of dollars out of my bank. I hate that if I do eventually win a share, I will still likely be deep in the hole for BBJ funds overall, yet I will have to pay taxes on my winnings. And now I will also have a dealer in expectation of sharing in the "big win" of mine which is really still a loss! I am all for tipping dealers in their regular daily job and do so, but I really don't think any dealer deserves anything extra for a jackpot, and their expectation should be $0. I know that the jackpots slow down the game so that no hands are probably played for the next 30 minutes or so. What would really be "fair" to the dealer would be for him to be tipped the same amount that he normally would make during those 30 minutes, but I know that if I tipped just that much, that dealer would now hate me, and he would probably spread the word to all the other dealers in the place, who would do the same thing, making my time in the casino miserable from then on. It's really a no-win situation for a player who is trying to win at this game.

Good post. Now how about factoring in how much extra you've made because the room where you play features a BBJ. Does your room get more crowded when the BBJ prize amount grows larger than average? Are the extra players "cream of the crop" type of players or are they recreational players with a dream?

How many pots that you win are $15 bigger than they'd otherwise be because the guy in seat 6 isn't folding his 96 preflop even though you raised, because, after all, he's got a shot at a straight flush and came to hit that bad beat jackpot?

BBJ rooms bring in more of exactly the type of player that you want at your table, and if you thought about it a little bit more, you'd probably conclude that the $1 you pay to the house for the jackpot fund is a pretty good investment.

Essentially $0. I play limit poker games in rooms that are generally the only places in town that spread those games. I played the same games before and after the jackpots were brought into Atlantic City. The player volume did not increase afterward nor did the games get any better. Even the total player volume in the no limit games didn't increase, it just moved around to where the jackpot was currently higher. I am certain that BBJs are bad for the long-term health of poker as well, because they take money out of the poker economy.

This kind of thing has been discussed on other forums previously and is not really relevant to tipping so I don't want to derail. Regardless, BBJs come from a player-funded source and there is no reason that dealers should suddenly make more money after they are implemented, as also happened in Atlantic City.

Defending feelings pretty hard there.