How do you know it's not just perception bias? If there were no correlation we would expect union members, athletes, and high stakes poker players to have an incidence of complacency equal to that in the whole population. But you would probably notice those cases more, possibly because of preconceptions about unions and people who make a lot of money playing games.

That's just to assert correlation. (In other words, lazy people might tend to join unions or take up poker at higher rates than the population.) You've asserted causality, which is harder still to make a case for.

====

That said, although i can't meet my own standards of empirical rigor, i really do think pooling tips makes dealers complacent about number of hands per down.

I had an O8 dealer, otherwise technically very good, tell me that it doesn't matter whether she waits until showdown to stack the pot because "Omaha's really slow anyway." I should probably stiff her for that remark alone, but the point is she doesn't care whether she gets out 10 hands a down or 3 hands a down.

Michigan too, and i've heard it said that it has to do with union negotiations.

I don't like to tip on a per-hand basis because it just seems like if you have a night where you win a lot of small pots and lose a few big ones you end up tipping all your profits away. I have told the dealers at the casino where I am a regular that I will take care of them at the end of the night (they pool their tips). If I have a winning session of >3 hours I will usually throw them around 5% of my winnings with a $5 minimum and if I have a losing session I stiff them and say good night. It may not be particularly fair but if I don't win I'm not going to throw extra money around.

Posts like the above are what cause people's blood to boil in these threads. At least you were sincere enough to actually include the phrase "I stiff them and say good night" instead of sugar coating it

It's pretty tough to "tip all your profits away" simply because you have a night in which you're small-balling pots. Besides, this evens out over the course of time - you will have nights when you get big hands paid off and nights when you don't, these will occur proportionally. Dealer has nothing to do with whether you play for stacks or not.

I never viewed it as lazy people taking certain jobs. To me it's a matter of reaching goals. A person busts his ass to get a cushy union job (note: not all union jobs are easy), to become a top poker player, to make enough money to buy their dream house, etc. When your eyes are set on the prize you are driven to obtain it. But upon succeeding most people lose their motivation to give 100%.

The best individuals will always set new goals and continue to push themselves. However, the reality is that the majority of people lack that extra spark inside (coaches call it Heart). They become complacent once they reach what they feel is an adequate amount of success. All I am saying is that poker dealers are not immune to the downfalls of basic human psychology. Give them too much and they will settle. 99% of us do.

You seem to assume that the only people who get angry are those who think tipping is necessary. From what I've seen, the other side gets just as upset, particularly when the pro-tipping faction starts acting like theirs is the only reasonable position — or worse, the only honorable or moral one.

Neither position has the clear moral high ground here. In the US tipping is customary, but it is by no means clear that it is ethically required; neither is it clear that not tipping is the right decision, nor even an acceptable on in a a tipping culture. If everyone keeps in mind that there is no obvious answer, maybe this discussion can remain civil.

Well said.

I think the antipathy on behalf of the pro-tipping faction comes from the feeling that we're getting freeloaded, though. Non-tippers get (mostly) the same services we do, but they don't feel obligated to pay much for it.

The fact that we voluntarily set ourselves up to get freeloaded doesn't really make us feel any better. It's sort of prisoner's dilemma, but we're not willing to rock the boat enough to change the system.

If > 50% of players stopped tipping, so would i. As it is, i'm glad the guy tipping redbirds covers for me tipping $1 from a $300 pot.

Casino's make a fortune in rake and should pay/treat their employee's far far better than they do. It's not up to me the poker player to compensate the dealers/janitors or security.

I wish that some convention would develop in split-pot games with respect to tipping. A lot of times, you just win your money back, especially in stud hi/lo where it is heads-up on third street and most of the antes go toward the rake.

In these cases, it feels stingy not to tip, since the hand might still have taken a long time, but frustrating to tip if it means that you now lose money on the hand. It seems like a good compromise should be that the high hand is expected to tip but not the low hand in these situations, but unless everyone is following a similar convention, you look like a jerk when you dont tip.

Seriously? I've never played live stud 8 (would like to), but what's the point of playing at stakes where both your hands are getting HU on 3rd and the antes barely pay for the rake?

I have had similar thoughts because i play so much low-stakes O8. If you spend a session getting quartered or worse this is a frustration, but i'm against players so bad that even when my A2 or A3 gets quartered, it breaks even because of all the horrible preflop hands. Often i take half with naked A2 and still do well.

I would suggest just tipping on the high half unless the pot is multiway and rather large. Inattentive dealers will think you cheap but it's a good opportunity to practice not caring. I say the same for myself (but tip-pooling saves me the Angst!).

Your entire post reads like a lawyer trying to convince a jury to evade their own common sense.

"no clear moral high ground"
"not ethically required"
False equivalence after false equivalence.
blah blah blah.

When you knowingly employ people to perform labor for you, knowing that those people work for tips, and, in the course of performing their job for you, they provide you with good service, as per their half of the arrangement, you should also honor *your* half of the arrangement and pay them for the services you have knowingly and voluntarily used.

There is absolutely no moral equivalence between (1) paying for the services you use and (2) getting someone to perform labor for you and then walking out without paying the check.


q/q

In a handful of days, you and the rest of the 50% would lose it all back anyway, as rakes would rise heavily to compensate the dealers, who clearly wouldn't be interested in having their salaries drastically reduced.

I guess people on m end get satisfaction out of enjoying ourselves and making others feel better without constantly worrying about winrates. $1 on $300 in 1/2 NL wouldn't make me feel good about myself.

Do you guys follow the same principles when you're out at the bar, restaurant, hair cut place, etc etc etc? Keep in mind there that you're in real life, not on 2p2, and you can't cite winrates as an excuse, but you would come off poorly socially and have problems with service. It'd be pretty low in the US to get a bill at a restaurant for $147 and leave $3 because you have some pre-conceived idea about the custom stemming from a poker table.

I don't know much about Stud Hi Lo. As far as Omaha Hi Lo, pots that get halved or quartered and lead to bad-tipping situations are very often the result of poor play by people who have already put themselves in a -EV situation by their very play of the hand. Not really the dealer's fault when you go to war HU with nothing but a naked low draw and a pot full of your own money

Yea i am sure dealers will work so hard when they are guarenteed so much money.

This is a little off-topic for the thread, but the ante in pink chip or 10/20 stud is $1. If you are playing six handed and get heads up with the bring-in (a very common situation), you exactly win your money back by chopping minus $4 rake.

I'm certainly not saying the dealer should get nothing. But the dealer also doesnt really merit being tipped double just because a pot got split. It would be nice if a conventioned developed to resolve the burder of appropriate tipping in these situations.

If there's an odd chip left, it goes to the high hand. So, high hand tips.

For the last 10 years of my poker career Ive been tipping the janitors instead of the dealers. The skill level is about the same on both jobs, yet the janitors work 10 times harder and make far less.

lol at all you dealers who think I'm obligated give you part of my pot . I love stiffing you guys and giving the money to the more deserving.

Trolling.

These threads are a lot more fun when people start talking about tipping waiters and waitresses.

Yeah, that was my point. If the system's about to undergo an immense shift, it's not my responsibility to be one of the last holdouts playing under the old set of rules. That would make me one of the suckers paying the higher rake and tipping too.


Then you should tip enough to make you feel OK about yourself, perhaps enough to make you feel as though you're playing your part to help dealers earn a decent living. I tip enough to make me feel that way.

As you well know, winning one $300 pot per night doesn't mean my EV is $300 per session, and it only costs the dealer a little more effort than pushing a $9 five-way limped pot, certainly not 30x as much. (I tip $1 for those too, at present. If i start tippng more on $300 then i will tip less for $9. Seems like the net effect would be to increase variance for the dealers.)

Now that i'm playing more $2-5 and $15/30, i'll tip one or two more for a $400-500ish pot.

So except for the fact that those situations are nothing like poker, do i treat them exactly like poker? Huh?

On occasion i'll tip a few extra bucks to the janitorial staff. I figure they work as hard as the dealers (which is to say, pretty damned hard) but get less recognition. I don't take dealers for granted, but i figure $30 / hour of active work balanced by $2/hour of sitting there spading decks waiting for games to start is probably reasonable compensation.

I should have considered an extra quarterly bonus for dealers i considered good when i played where they can keep their own tips. In Michigan, i might still do that but it won't be as much because it can't be targeted.

LOL at the grade-C trolls. I remember the days when 2+2 could attract the best!

For 70 posts, nobody acted out of line. Responses were fair, thoughtful, reasonable, and covered both sides of the issue intelligently.

Then we get this single abomination, from someone with a handful of posts.

Fast forward to 3 months from now. Another one of these threads will pop up, and someone will comment how "every tipping thread turns into an insult fest and they should be locked".

If you're referring to me, I thought it was a reasonable line of thought to bring up.

Virtually everyone in the anti-tipping crowd says the same thing, that they don't want to cut into their own money to pay someone for simply doing their job. Under their line of thought, I fail to see how the two aren't exactly alike. I find it tough to believe that the people in the anti-tipping poker crowd are flinging around large amounts of money towards people in service professions in other walks of life

I don't evaluate myself on pursuit of gastronomy as a hobby by totaling my session results from different restaurants over the years. (For a long time i tried to keep my books in gross and net terms for more or less this reason, to encourage me to tip more, but that felt sort of silly to track so i've stopped doing it this year.)

If you think i'm representative of "the anti-tipping crowd", then you're probably not going to like much of where this thread heads.

Anyway, i'm tired of explaining what i tip, and i certainly have no desire to defend it. I tip what i think upholds my end of the social compact with dealers. If you do the same, then good for you.

1tightass You know nothing of casino profits, the rake in a poker room is nothing compared to other profit centers Poker makes very little money compared to slots In my room about 50 times more minus the increased labor cost. If you dont want to tip dont, If your a cheap person fine, but dont think your going to justify it by blaming evil greedy card rooms or rich casinos or republicans. If we go to a wage base system you would have a union for sure, poker dealers in my casino are the only people who rejected the union because of the wage we make with tips, take away tips and you would have to increase our pay by about 6 times per hour if cost go up 600 percent what do you think the rake will do, do you think casinos will obsorb that or close the poker room, Take a business class if you dont believe me.