I think there is a misunderstanding of the term "break" as it is used ITT irt poker dealers vs workers at say a walmart. Under US FLSA, most hourly workers are entitled to two 15 minute breaks on the clock during an 8 hour shift. That's usually one before their off the clock lunch break (which can range from 30 mins to an hour) and then one after lunch. During those breaks, they are paid whatever their hourly rate is.

Most dealers don't have a fixed break schedule like that. Rather, the time they go to the break room is determined by how busy the room is. So they may deal 2 tables and go "on break" after working an hour or do a 6 table push and not go on break for 3 hours. But those breaks aren't all breaks like the 15 minute break like the walmart worker gets. Instead, many are simply that business volume dictates that there is no need to have dealers sitting at empty tables so they sit in the break room. But they are at work, on the clock, cannot leave, and could be called to a table at anytime. So of course they must receive the same hourly rate as they do in the box.

To suggest that a dealer gets a different rate at the table would be like saying that a cashier gets a different hourly rate when someone is in their line and they are actively checking someone out, and a lower rate when they are just standing at their register waiting to check out. Or that a retail salesperson at a clothing store in the mall gets a lower rate when the store is empty and only gets the higher rate when a customer walks into the store. That's simply not how any hourly rate job works.

So break for a dealer isn't the same as time off like a lunch break. When a dealer says he makes $X/hr that means for all his hours on the clock, not simply the time in the box. And player tips makes up the vast amount of that hourly rate. Just as a cashier makes $X/hr for 8 hours, whether they are Actually checking someone out, standing at the register waiting, or if they have been told to wait in the back room by management.

At my room, we deal 30 minute downs and the strings are 3-4 tables on average. The dealers on break push their first table at '00' and '30' on the clock. The last dealer in the string can be pushed as quickly as '02'/'32' and as late as '20'/'50' if the DC screws up the rotation, if a dealer goes to the wrong table and it isn't noticed right away, or if one of the tables in the string has a hand that takes an incredibly long time with lots of side pots and players tanking for big money decisions.

So my break might last anywhere from nearly a full 30 minutes to as few as 10 minutes, but is probably around 22 or 23 minutes long on average. And if I break a table I might get longer than 30 minutes for a break.

I never clock out for breaks or for a meal, but 30 minutes is automatically deducted from my time once I reach a certain amount of time worked (5 hours on the clock, I think, qualifies me for an automatic 30 minute deduction).

River, bolt:

That's all fine, and doesn't really impact the discussion at all re: how much rake would need to increase to eliminate tipping without impacting dealer pay.

You guys are right about the break times, but it's already been noted that the inrease would be like $1.2 instead of $1, done simply by taking an extra dollar every 5 hands or whatever. Doesn't justify dramatic increase.

As to whether this would be "better". Idk, probably not, the mediocre dealers would stay mediocre and the really good dealers would have less incentive to preform at their A level.

I thought I had read some posts by you and others discussing dealers having different hourly rates for table time vs no table time, and that things like PTO costs wouldn't result in a net increase to the casino, but I think it would. For example (just to use round numbers) let's say a dealer now averages making $200 during an 8 hour shift, or $25/hr. $40 of that comes from their hourly pay, (8*$5) and 160 comes from tips. So if you adjust the rake so that the $160 from tips is replaced by rake, the dealer now gets all $200 from his hourly and 0 from tips, (casino pays them $25/hr) then the casino would break even on that since they pay payroll taxes on both tip and hourly income of the dealer already, and the dealers income hasn't changed

But if that dealer has vacation, sick, or other paid time off, for which he currently gets paid $5/hr, the casino would now have to pay them $25 per hour for that. So it seems to me (but I am not an accountant) that the extra expense would be on top of the increase in rake that just exactly replaces current tipping. Then add the payroll tax on that increase, and it seems like the rake increase would have to be more than just enough to cover what the players are tipping, or else there is a net loss to the casino.

But as I said, I'm not sure about all this stuff, so I could be mistaken.

River,

In your example, the dealer today averages $25/hr for his hours at the casino and $5/hr for PTO. If the casino replaces tips with rake or whatever, the new hourly rate would not be $25/hr in this hypothetical scenario.

It would be whatever the blended average is between $25/hr and $5/hr based on how much PTO the employee gets. To make the math super easy, let’s say they get 50% PTO. In that case, today they’d make $25k for 1000 work hours and $5k for 1000 PTO hours. If you want to have the same wage for all hours, you’d simply make the wage $15/hr, resulting in the same $30k total for those 2000 hours.

What's the point of all of this? The dealers are still making the same wages, on average as they already were.

Under your system:

- Good dealers who make better tips due to better service and/or more efficient (faster) dealing are now making less money.

- Bad, lazy, and/or rude dealers are now making more money.

- Players who enjoy being thought of as generous are now told not to tip and are saving money, where they were already happy (presumably) to tip more than average.

- Players who don't tip or who rarely tip are now paying more money in the form of increased rake.

Who wins here? Other than people who just hate the notion of a tipping culture, that is.

I suppose you're right.

I'd want to both do away with the tipping system, and have the casino foot the majority of the cost difference. But with our hypothetical scenario, tipping does seem more appealing

Good dealers should make more money. Works well in every other profession that's not based around tips.

No one needs to read an MLYLT diary to realize that bad employees have bad results at work, not the opposite.

Dunno. I'm guessing the psychology of tipping is beyond the scope of this thread.

There wouldn't be a 7500+ post thread on tipping if dealers were indifferent to non-tippers.

You do. Wouldn't you want zero fluctuations in your day-to-day pay?

Bolt,

You tell me, idgaf either way.

Do you prefer the way it is or would you prefer a set hourly wage?

Is that what the tipping containment thread is to you? 7500 posts of dealers bitching about players who stiff them? If I was going to try to boil this thread down to a single theme, I'd be more likely to say that it was 7500 posts of players complaining about entitled dealers who expect a 5 figure tip for dealing a mythical bbj that will probably never happen.


My day-to-day pay is irrelevant to me. I get paid every other week. My paycheck is remarkably consistent. There are fluctuations (obviously) but 80-90 percent of my checks fall right in the same range. And a few times a year I have a really good or a really bad couple of weeks and there's more of a spike or a valley.

Would I prefer a set hourly wage? Not particularly. I'm pretty good at my job and most of the players appreciate me. And while I don't have access to the payroll numbers at my casino I have a pretty good idea that I make better tips than at least half of my coworkers. Plus I still get a rush when I hit a table that's tipping like crazy or when I deal a huge pot to a monster tipper. I understand it all evens out in the long run, but I still enjoy the highs. Probably not entirely unlike going on a nice heater if you're playing instead of dealing.

And I don't believe for a second that YDGAF, El Diablo. You've invested way too much time and energy into this topic over the last several days, especially as you are, no doubt, aware that the tipping containment thread on 2p2 is not actually responsible for tipping policies in poker rooms across the nation.

Bolt,


I play poker at most once a month. When I do, I’m typically drinking and often tipping more than $5/hand. I give absolutely zero ****s as to what tipping policies are at poker rooms.

At this very moment I have 2 games up. I also have 4 dealers on the clock. 2 are on break and 2 in the box. Explain to me how I pay them all $25/hr with a $1 increase in the rake. Let's say I make $100/hr in rake per table to make it easy. In one hour they play 36 hands on each table, so 72 hands total and I drop $200. Add $1 per hand and now I have dropped $276. I have 4 dealers that I have to pay $20 extra to each. That's $80 I have to pay out when I only brought in $76. That is close but again I will tell you that I cannot take that extra dollar unless it is in a max rake situation. That means I have to up my max rake from $5 to $6 and then I will only see that extra $1 when the post gets above $60. Or maybe I would have to jack up the rake to 20% with a $6 max? IDK, but all I am saying is I cannot just take an extra $1 for every pot that sees a flop. Would the gaming commission allow it if I asked? IDK.

Suit,

I don’t know why you keep bringing up $25/hr.

That's the number we started using because it was easy to do the math.

Suit,

That number is only relevant if $25/hr is what dealers make based on that $1/hand tip. In your example, the $72 (you wrote $76 but I think meant $72) gets them $18 each for a total of $23/hr, which is what they are making with $1/hand tips in your scenario.

If they’re making $25/hr, that means people are tipping more than $1/hand on average in your scenario, so more than an extra $1/hand average would need to be raked to make up for eliminating tipping.

It doesn’t really matter whether you take them out $1 at the front end or $2 at the backend of your 50% biggest pots or $3 at the backend of your 33% biggest pots or any mixture of that.

To make up for eliminating $1/hand average tips, the casino needs to drop an extra $1/hand on average.

You said you drop $200/72 hands. That’s $2.78 per hand. Let’s say there’s 20% tax/overhead on your revenues. So you then need to drop approx $4/hand to make up for $1/hand tipping. Many different ways to structure the rake change to get there.

Spare me the indignant routine, please. I said if dealers were "indifferent" to non-tippers - now you're calling them stiffs, right after you claimed the great thing about tipping is that it's discretionary and that right shouldn't be taken away from players who wish not to tip. Well, which is it?

Also, mythical bbj? You make it seem like it's hitting the grand prize of the powerball. Just over the summer I had a pat 53 badugi against a royal. That's far harder than q/q or whatever a bbj is. How often does your room hit this mythical bbj?


How much is that hourly?

Sure you would. It's just that some players have suggested that a dealer is worth $25/hr and that has become the figure thrown around. Since there's a lot of resistance in the form of bringing up pto, taxes, combining base salary etc., you guys obviously crush that rate, so $25 is not worth an hourly rate to you. That's fine. Again, for the handful of dealers who can deal a dealer's choice td game to a bunch of *******s and absolutely crush it, I'd easily pay $10 a down. At a 5-handed game, that's $100/hr and they are worth every dollar of that. So what is your price? Simple question.

Suit & bolt,

$10/down is a bit much -- assuming 1k hours/year thats 20k/year in tips.


But playing mid-high stakes if you get X% more hands in as well as a happier table, I can see it being a worthy cost.

Sure, I'll deal your game for 100 an hour. Hit me up.

Honest question: why do we tip dealers at all if we think that the outcome is not affected by them? In other words, the only reason to tip them is because you like them, right?

The main reason is that they are in a (somewhat arbitrarily chosen) "tipped service personnel" category, and in some states paid less than standard minimum wage by their employers. Similar to servers in restaurants.

My tipping at a poker table or a restaurant can be somewhat based on how much I like the person, but I like them better if they give me more efficient / pleasant service.

If I decided to "gamble" on a restaurant item I have never had before, and I don't end up enjoying it very much, I wouldn't stiff the server because of that. He didn't have any control over my choice of meals, that was totally up to me. Just like a dealer who didn't have control over the cards I get or how I played my hand.

For the same reason we tip waiters, porters, taxi drivers, hotel maids, and other tipped positions: some combination of thanks for good service and because it is customary

Ok, but are you saying you tip even when you lose a pot? Surely this is in the very small minority?

I never thought about the dealer's wage, I assume it's good enough and not minimum wage. This definitely has no bearing on whether I tip or not.

Most places in the US it is basically minimum wage (or less if the state allows it).