i don't play tournaments but if i did there's no way i'm paying dealer add on fees then tipping if i cash

perfect example of how entitled a lot of dealers are

a table tips 4000 dollars for maybe an hour of work (i'm assuming no hands were dealt for an hour or so) and somehow that's not good enough.amazing.

chillrob is 100 pct right.

Hey guys, just wanted to get your thoughts on this as I havent been able to let it go since it happened.
This occured at a local casino live 1/2nl, friendly, fun game. Been playing for a little while and a new dealer comes in... I've seen this dealer plenty of times before and never had a problem with him. He normally deals very quickly and moves the game along nicely. As a result of his normal speedy dealing, I quickly noticed that in the current hand he was dealing very, very slowly (literally taking a half second pause between each card he tossed to each player). I didn't say anything but just thought it was peculiar.
A few hands later, after dealing his normal fast-pace speed, he does it again; dealing very, very slowly, not telling players when it's their turn to act which slowed the action way down.
I made a joking comment along the lines of "Boy, this has got to be the slowest hand of cards I ever played." to which a few of the other players laughed and the dealer replied in an annoyed tone "Well, I don't work for free, no tips, no service." He didnt chuckle after saying this, or try to make light of it.
I have to admit I was sort of caught off guard when he said this; implying that if he doesnt get a tip after every pot, that he will intentionally slow things down, which was clearly off putting to some of the other players including myself

I didn't end up saying anything back to the dealer, as I wanted to keep the atmosphere friendly, but I was very ****ing close to getting up and walking out of the room.

Is this behavior okay on the dealer's behalf? Are dealers entitled to a tip after every hand and if not, can intentionally slow the game down? What are your guys thoughts and opinions about this? Thanks boys.

If I won the slow hand, I would stiff the dealer and say "no service, no tip".

Speak to the manager. I have known dealers to slow down when they're dealing to a table full of stiffs which is not good, but slowing down after every airball is very very bad and saying what he said is absolutely uncalled for and certainly needs to be brought to managements attention. I would want to know 100% if my dealers ever did that. Hustling for tips is a fireable offense.

Of course his comment was inappropriate. And if you take a hard line / perfectionist viewpoint, his actions were inappropriate as well.

I think I personally give more leeway to both players who might want to withhold tips and dealers who might not want to provide top-notch service when they're not getting tipped. In the grand scheme of things, if that's what makes them happy, then I'm OK with it. Things would be better if everyone tipped and all dealers gave 100% effort every down, but that's not how things work in the real world.

I personally have one dealer I don't tip at my local room. She's a terrible dealer and she gives off a strong air of "I don't give a ****." So I don't tip and I expect poor service from her. In fact, I usually take a break during her downs if I feel like I could use a little walk.

Wow, yeah I would have 100% gotten the floor right then and/or said something to the dealer. That's not okay whatsoever.

Unless he's seriously burned out on his job, he didn't slow down because of ONE airball. He likely got many in a row that you didn't notice.

It is funny to me that saying you're slowing down is considered worse than simply slowing down. Both are wrong, but only one gets you fired and earns a post here.

That still doesn't make it okay. Even if 6 players are stiffing him, should the other 3 have to suffer? You don't have to give 100% and it's okay to reserve that for exceptional tipping, but doing a **** job and/or intentionally slowing down the game is not acceptable.

Well at half a second per pitch, it sounds like he was going slow enough to either illicit a verbal prompt from the players or make his motives clear without a prompt. That's effectively the same as coming right out and saying it and should be treated the same. Neither a player nor a manager needs to wait for him to say it.

Local room .. not casino. Tournament over, cash tables combine into 1 for last 90 minutes of the night. Owner taps out Dealer .. Dealer is not happy about shift getting cut short since they rotate between cash and tournament 'nightly' in this room.

Not sure the cash hourly wage in this room but lets just say it was $8, so for 90 minutes a Dealer (faster than said Owner) would 'cost' the room about $16 in wages and taxes while producing about $90 in revenue and yet still got the boot!

Do you still tip the Owner/Dealer? As it turns out the table dwindled to 6 and then the fish busted, which brought out the racks after only about 45 minutes. Two hand later I busted a nitty player and the night was over. (Karma?) GL

This needs to be brought to the attention of casino management. Not a supervisor/dual rate who will laugh it off with the dealer later, go right to the casino manager, then he will go to the poker manager. These things are absolutely uncalled for and he should be fired.

To me it would not matter how fast or slow he dealt, He would never be seeing a tip from me again. I would also speak to the floor and expect serious ramifications. Maybe not a firing but some unpaid time off. If I knew the room mgr I would also contact him. Of course I am luck enough to have multiple options to play at and unaddressed this is the type of thing that will cause me to drop a room.

good advice usually the floorman in the poker room doesnt care because he himself is a dealing working off tips. the only people who truly care and can emphasize with the players are those who arent working for tips themselves.

agreed. Pretty laughable how the only person defending the dealer is reducto (a dealer himself obv), who also immediately tried to come up with an excuse for the dealers behavior instead of in any way condemning it.

You should reread my post. I am not a dealer.

What's truly laughable is that as a dealer, I'm on really good terms with the majority of the regular players in my room. I'll have a friendly conversation with most of them if I run into them when I'm off the clock, at the mall, a restaurant, or a sporting event. But a small group of regular players are just inherently miserable people who are determined to not get along with anyone who provide them with a service and hope to get paid for their time. It's almost as if it's "us" (the dealers) against "them" (the players) with these guys.

Kind of like the mentality of this thread.

How did I defend the dealer? I said both were bad. I was trying to provide context and make an observation about how talking about something was considered worse than actually doing it.

Not sure what you mean Rapini. If you aren't a dealer that would simply agree with the post even more (unless you do work for tips?). However, it's of course an exaggeration to say that dealers and/or people working for tips cannot empathize with the players. I would also agree that a vast majority of players are unable to empathize with the dealers. Trying to be objective is no easy task.

Dunno what you're point is bolt, I'm not at all insulting all dealers, merely pointing out how quickly people are to defend their own (like you are now) without merit (though I suppose there is merit in this instance, my comment was obv snarky and warrants that type of reaction). The same applies to players as well (within context of "player vs dealer"). Similarly I'm friends and/or have very friendly rapport with nearly every dealer in my local room. It was more of a shot at Reducto than a shot at dealers.

You did not say both were bad Reducto, you were trying to create context of sympathy for him in a scenario where even if that were true (which it might have been), is irrelevant, as that does not warrant such a ridiculous response from the dealer. You were clearly very biased in attempting to defend the dealer. That's pretty normal though fwiw, but I wanted to point it out. Very unhelpful discussion itt if it's an "us vs them" mentality, people need to be objective to get anywhere.

I did in fact say "both are wrong" in my post meaning both slowing down and demanding tips to speed up were wrong. I didn't jump on the he should be fired bandwagon because I thought that was already covered, I guess that constituted defending him.

Thanks TBC!!!! yeah this guy is a total jack ass I would wanna make sure the management knows about it and also make sure the problem gets dealt with (hopefully he gets terminated).

Alot of people seem to think griping about their job's lack of economic fulfillment should be a terminating event. Guy had a bad day, acted inappropriately. Reprimand and train. End of story.

I'm normally on the same page, I think you should give people a lot of leeway when it comes to making honest mistakes. But this wasn't a mistake, this was a deliberate and intentional incident berating the players for not tipping him enough. A mistake is something like... pushing the pot to the wrong person, or burning an extra card, or declaring incorrect action etc., all things a normal human can certainly mess up from time to time. It takes a particular sort of person to intentionally slow down the game to try and "prove a point", the sort of person that likely should not be in the customer service industry.

Tip hustling is a fire-able offense in many card rooms. End of story.


Do you ever fact check your posts before pressing submit?

Agreed, I’m curious what you think is a fireable offense if not this. Like how far off is your line.