Suit,


The math is the same in both. It does not magically cost more the casino more to compensate the tips than if the dealers take the money directly from the pot. If it’s $1 they take from each pot, the casino would have to increase minimum rake by $1 to match that.

For some reason, you also have the casino increasing wages on non-tipped hours. Of course that would cost more, since you’d be making up for lost tips PLUS increasing wages for non-tipped hours on top of that.

That’s why your calculations are wrong.

Because dealers would be taking a blow at $25/hr in the box and don't want to admit that.

Can't the dealers just take a dollar out of every pot over a certain dollar amount and never be tipped again? (except tournaments)

No.

ED (and I agree with him) has stated that the rake increases at the front end. Thus a $2-7 becomes $3-8.

The money drops early...as in the first $1 goes to this imaginary kitty that pays toward giving the dealer a raise.

Dealer takes the FIRST $1 out of every pot that goes to the flop.

I play time games. I'd pay an extra $5 time charge per down if paid directly to good dealers. That would be at a minimum $20 per hour above base for the dealer. I'd pay $10 per down if I was guaranteed a stellar dealer every down.

Casinos don't have minimum rake. They have Maximum rake. Big difference.

Also, casinos can't pay their staff one amount while they are working and a different amount while they are on break. Do you know any company that does that without making them punch in and out for breaks? Is that what you are suggesting they do?

Yes, the second part is true and would be a detail that would need careful analysis.

LoL:
That's one way to do it. Or if they want a consistent hourly, could do a blended hourly based on % in box vs % break/PTO/etc. So for 80% in the box, you could either do $30 dealing / $10 non-dealing or $26/hr for everything.

Suit:
That's one option. Which is effectively equivalent to the room increasing minimum rake by $1 and earmarking that for dealer comp. Which one makes more sense (or keeping the status quo) is largely just a matter of marketing/optics.

Suit,

When a pot is raked, it is raked for some amount. And then if it gets bigger it may get raked a little more. Up to some maximum amount. If those numbers are $[2+1 for jackpot]+1+1 today, you just change that to $[2+1 for jackpot + 1 for dealer]+1+1 today. It goes from $3-5 to $4-6.

The break thing is easy. If dealers at your room today make $30/hr with tips at the table and $5/hr on breaks, and deal 80% of the time, that means they make an average of $25/hr. So you pay them $25/hr.

Or you just pay them a bonus (like an overtime bonus or hazard pay bonus or various other bonuses given for hours worked in certain situations) for the hours at the table. I imagine if you're using Bravo or something that's already tracked, right?

So, I worked 40 hours in this period @ $5/hr, I get paid $200. I also clocked 32 Bravo hours in the period, I get $25/hr bonus for those hours - $800, for $1000 total.

If it is rake, it is taxed. 20% in Maryland. 6.75% in Nevada. So each additional $1 MDLive drops gets them just $0.80

You can't take it out early in Nevada. You would be raking more than 10%, which is illegal.

Each $1 increase in wage costs the casino $1.0765 when you include FICA tax. Other taxes, benefits are additional.

But it is a dumb argument.

The system is not going to change, at least in my lifetime [full disclosure: I am 68 so "in my lifetime" is capped at about 30 years in the future]

So we are all stuck with number 1:

1 - Pay $5 max rake and have the option of tipping the dealer.

But I some in this thread don't really believe that tipping the dealer is really an option.

One of the rooms I go to still has the Dealers do both 'the card' and Bravo when dealing tournament. Not sure if Bravo is a 'real time' software or if it has data storage capabilities built in that could be integrated with a payroll software.

Since a lot of players are 'immune' to rake the Dealers might see a (short term) spike in pay unless you ban tipping altogether at the table when a $1 per hand is instituted. Can't imagine any Dealer not wanting to leave that door open ... I think most players would still want the option to 'add on' if they so choose. GL

If it gets dropped in a tote box, it's not rake but we are calling it rake for discussion purposes. A Gaming Commission might not see it that way if it's 'mandatory' or policy to take it out. That could be open for debate/dispute.

Gas stations in Michigan only have to claim $0.10 in sales when they sell a $1 lottery ticket ... so no tax on $$ going 'straight' to the lottery pool, only the 10% 'handling' fee that station gets to keep. GL

El,

I get what you are saying but it just doesn't work that way. If the casino ups the dealer pay and takes away tipping they have to claim the money they take as revenue. That gets taxed. They have to pay it to the dealers and it gets taxed again. The only way it would work would be to increase the max rake by $X. I think X = $3-5.

I would say it would be the easiest to just have the dealers take $1 out of every pot over $X, but that would be making tipping mandatory and the gaming commission or IRS or whoever else has control over that stuff would never allow it.

I'm saying it is two separate options. If it goes in a toke box it is a mandatory tip. If it goes in the rake then it's revenue and the casino decides how much that has to be to compensate the dealers for no tipping. The reality is that there really is only two options. Either it stays the way it is or the casino ups the rake by $3-5 to cover the increase in wages. I only asked this question to see what people's opinions would be. I also know it will never happen in my lifetime and I'm much younger than Angus. It was just something I was curious about.

Suit,

Casinos get taxed on gross revenues? I don't know how casino taxes work, but in all the businesses I have experience in (technology, bars/restaurants, fashion/retail), taxes are based on profits, not revenues. So if you take in an extra dollar and pay out an extra dollar, your taxes stay the same. You're saying a money-losing casino faces a huge tax bill?

Tips are taxed too, so this should not make any difference. If you're saying dealers are cheating on taxes and the casino would need to pay to make up for that, well that's a different issue.

Again, I'm not sure why it wouldn't work just like the jackpot drop or the dealer fee added on to tournaments. If you can add a fee for dealers to tournaments, why can't you do the same in cash games?

I'm no tax expert and I cannot argue with you on any of that, but all I can say is all money that goes in the rake is counted as revenue. Do they tax the casino on gross revenue? I don't think so, but IDK. Prime example of what I am talking about (well kind of): I want to run a Poker League style event where the buy in for each tourney is $60 and I want to take $10 form each of those buy ins to hold onto for a final event where the top players get to play for the big prize at the end and all of that $10 goes into the prize pool and I keep $0 of it. The state says I can't do that. The only way I can do it according to them is to take the $10 as revenue and then pony up the cash myself for the final event as "promotional money" that the house is adding to the prize pool. Now to you or me that hardly makes sense because I am already paying tax on the revenue that I am actually getting in the form of the entry fee, but they want to charge me tax on the money that I am going to hold for a future payout and I won't see any revenue from it. Maybe my state is just f'ed up IDK.[/QUOTE]

Very good point. My dealers tips come on their check so they get taxed the same no matter what. You're 100% correct that the taxes won't mater at all.

IDK. I've never had the opportunity to submit something like that to the gaming commission. I don't know what their answer would be.

Suit,

If you take the $10 as revenue, and later spend the $10 as a promotional expense, you won’t have any profit to pay corporate taxes on.

I don’t know if there are any additional gambling fees/taxes you get hit with on top of standard corporate income tax.

But in general, if a business takes in revenue and then turns around and spends it on some expense, the net result is no tax because you have no profit.

I thought all gaming taxes (not the businesses income tax) were on the gross.

If this is true, the rates would have to be very tiny. Some of the video poker machines pay out over 99 percent, and casinos wouldn't offer that if they were losing money after taxes.

Did,

If that’s the case, then of course increase the amounts in my calcs accordingly. If there’s a fixed 10% gaming tax on gross gaming revenues, then $1.11 rake needed to compensate for $1 in tips.

But it still wouldn’t be anywhere near the drastic rake difference in the Australian casino.

I agree
Once at the Rio we each tipped the floor 25 bucks to leave this one dealer.in the box for a couple of hours.
They dealers there are good awful to begin with and she was getting 25-30 hands per down in plo with no shuffler.by far the best dealer I've ever seen for plo.

The gross being how much is taken out of a machine (coin in less payouts) not taking into account any other business expenses. There's probably a better term than "gross" used but I can't think of it.

Seems like rake could also be reported as amount taken out less payouts (to dealers) then.

You don't see the difference?

Sure, there is a difference in whom the payout is going to, but if the casino isn't keeping either, I don't see why they should be treated differently. I'm not making any claims about how the tax regulations would be interpreted by a court, just saying IMO they should be treated the same.