Good point I didnt think of! I just thought it was a polite way of saying no without actually saying "no". Typically the only dealers that said no knew me well enough to know saying it wasnt going to hurt my feelings.

I don't know that I think there is anything wrong with saying "no" just that personally I would find it difficult because of the potential to abuse the situation. I don't wish to look like the dealer that hustles a second tip out of someone who couldn't remember. Honesty may be the best course of action but I just prefer to so it that way.

I provided a bullet-point outline of my casino tipping much earlier in this thread.

My tips are scaled to do with the size of the pot. Since I play a lot of split-pot games, how large the pot is and what side of it I get also play a factor.

Like most in this thread, I tip a dollar, sometimes two, on most "normal" pots pushed my way. If it's the low-end of a split pot, I only tip if it's a large pot, or if the high side got quartered and I'm the "big winner" in the hand. I don't tip when I steal the blinds, unless I've stolen a lot of them or I'm throwing a couple of dollars around trying to invite the table to gamble. Should I drag a large pot, I often tip much more.

So you rewarded dishonesty more than honesty. Cute.

And you know that if you did not tip, "I don't remember" is a lie.

The joy of, "I don't recall" is that you're the only one who can possibly testify to that statement's veracity.

Remember that if you're ever having congress ask you about shipping weapons to rebels...

See, but in my opinion the dealer did more work to split the pot so they actually deserve more when splitting the pot. But I guess that would come if both players tipped.

Well to be fair, it was dishonesty that only hurt them. They said they recieved a tip when they knew they didnt just to not seem like a hustler. This was by far the majority of the answers I recieved. probably like 4 out of 5 said yes even though they didnt.

Thinking now I dont like "I dont remember" answer only b/c it opens up the door for times they have been tipped and will still say they dont remember.

C'mon guys, enough with this.

Players have different views on tipping. Some don't, some a buck a pot regardless, some more if its a big pot.

Players tip what they want. Period.

They lied, you gave them $5.
They told the truth, you gave them $1.
Clearly you prefer lies to the truth.

True. And often both players do. I see both sides tip in split-pot games much more often than I see neither side tip.

However, I've never felt that it was my responsibility to share in the burden of paying for their employment costs. It is the casino's responsibility to employ them, despite any tacit social understanding that they're a tip-eligible position.

So I simply share my good fortune with the dealer when I'm in the mood to do so.

I agree with the tip not needing to go up based on the size of the pot. Clearly people playing 100/200NL don't tip a small blind size tip of $100 per hand even though I may give a $2 tip when playing 2/5.

I'm curious though why you then use the size of the jackpot to determine your tip for that. The dealer didn't do anything different to deal a bad beat jackpot of say $1000 vs $100,000, but in one case you would tip $100 and the other you would tip $10,000?

Everyone is free to tip what they want, so I'm not saying one way is better or worse. It's just that your own system seems contradictory to your beliefs.

I've really not made that big of a "fuss." All I said from the start is that if you're too cheap/broke/poor to tip, don't expect the same service from me as someone who consistantly tips gets.

If a non-tipper asks for a wash, I'll "forget." They're not paying me anyway, it's not in my job description, so please don't waste my, or the other players', time.

Don't ask me to have the podium put a tv on a certain channel for you. I'm trying to get to my next table, or go on break. A non-tipper hasn't paid me a dime to go out of my way.

Don't ask me to get the waitress for you. A stiff will likely stiff them too. They can go get their own drink.

Don't expect a pot to be neatly piled and delivered in front of your chip stack. That takes more time than just scattering it in your direction. Don't take too long to stack it, because if the next hand is out and your chips are across the line, it's a bet.

Do anything even slightly out of line and I'll call the biggest ******* floor we have... the one who actually enjoys throwing people out.

Etc etc. This treatment goes towards, maybe 5% of our players. The rest, I'll do whatever I can to make their time at the casino better.

This was regarding a higher rake needed to pay us a triple to quadruple salary.

The casino pays us x amount based on the money they are currently taking in. In order to pay us more, more money needs to be taken in. Someone said we should make $20 an hour. We'll use that as the example. We'll say a dealer was making $5 an hour plus tips. The pay quadruples. They are absolutely not going to raise our pay by 75% out of anyone's pocket. Our salaries are paid out of the rake and how much table games brings in. In theory, I suppose they could raise all minimum stakes on table games in order to bring in more revenue. But that runs the risk of scaring off alot of small time players (who are consistant in losing $100-$200 a few times a week).

Also, you couldn't only give this guaranteed income to poker dealers. The 300+ table games dealers the casino employs (unless you're playing at a Native American poker room) would demand a raise, as well. They couldn't be expected to rely on tips, while poker dealers get a higher base salary.

Table games, at medium casinos, drop anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 in tokes every day. At larger casinos, they can drop up to $100,000 or more a day. This normally gives them a pay of $17-$23 an hour (depending on how many are working that day). Or, around $11,000,000 a year. This money would have to come from somewhere. Again, no casino exec is going to take a cut in salary so us lowly dealers can make guaranteed money.

Is it impossible to make this happen? No. But the probability of it is slim to none.


[/quote]EDIT
Also, as a dealer, if you really believe your own words, why wouldn't you lobby for such a system if you really believe it would be personally advantageous? Again, support your claims.[/QUOTE]

Because there is 0 chance of it happening. I would only argue for it if they were willing to pay what I currently make in tips. And that's never going to happen. I probably wouldn't even do this job for $20 an hour. At least not full time.

$1 on $1000 is "disappointing." By that I mean we *hope* to get a big tip on a big pot. Anything is always appreciated, of course. But those kinds of pots are usually what makes up for the times we get stiffed. Like, if I get a $10 tip on $1000, that made up for the times I got stiffed that day. We hope to see bigger pots, the same as the players, because we could potentially be tipped very well.

$1 on $3 pots is great. I'll usually make a joke along the lines of, "Did you mean to do that? 33%? Sorry guys, so-and-so is my new favorite player." Just something dumb like that.

This. Thank you.

If you're giving 10% on a jackpot, I may pm you where I work. Steak dinner on me afterwards.

Call them out on it. Seriously. There is no excuse for that.

So that I have it clear:

A dealer rolling their eyes at you when you don't tip what they expect is, in your words, inexcusable.

On the other hand, short-arming pots, "forgetting" to call the waitress, not passing requests to the floor or brush, or the dealer trying to angle unstacked chips to constitute bets are all not only excusable, but to be expected if a player doesn't meet your standards for tipping?

Well, as long as you don't roll your eyes...

Dealing the bad beat is our "bonus." We always hope that it's dealt to two people who tip well. Your jackpot is, hopefully, our jackpot.

Did we do anything different to deal it? Not really. Did the players play any differently to "earn" it? No. You got lucky and hopefully the dealer will too.

I tell them that they did, either way. The ones who didn't tip usually remember and tip you more than they normally would for not trying to get money out of them. The ones who really did tip and forgot will sometimes throw you extra for being honest.

There is a difference between acting unprofessional and not going above and beyond for a non-tipper.

If you don't consider ignoring a request for a waitress or short pushing pots unprofessional, you are entitled to your myopic opinion.

The difference, of course, is that the players money is where the BBJ comes from, and the dealers pay nothing into it. So the notion one sometimes hears that it's "free money" is true for a dealer, but not for a player.

This may be a sore point for me, as I once heard dealers at our casino complaining that someone won a $150k jackpot and "only" gave the dealer $5000. So dealers who the casino pays $4 an hour are bitching because a player gave them 1250 hours of salary out of the players money, which just as easily could have gone to the players family or close friends.

Again, any player who wants to do that is fine with me; but it tilts me when dealers actually are willing to tell other players that they feel they are "entitled" to huge tips from jackpots.

So you're on record as saying that short-arming pots, "forgetting" to call the waitress, ignoring requests for the floor/brush and trying to angle unstacked chips as bets is professional behavior then?

There's only a few dealers in this thread who are brazen about their sense of entitlement.

On a 50-25-25 division of the Jackpot, and a full 10 person table, a table share would be 3.125% Plus, the winnings would be reported to the IRS. Hence, a table share would net maybe 2.5% of the pool.

If you want to hand over 10% (tax free for the dealer because we understand human nature) of your BBJ winnings, fine.

But dealers complaining (loudly enough so customers can hear) about anything above a 3% tip are nothing but freeloaders.

It's not in my job description to hunt down a waitress for any player. They are a seperate entity and department from me. The waitresses make themselves visible and known. It's not my responsiblity if a player wasn't paying attention when the waitress stood by the table and asked if anyone wanted a drink.

If you stiffed me during the down, then ask me to find a waitress for you after I'm pushed, I'm not going to do it.

I'm also not required to crunch a pot into a managable pile and put it right it on front of you. I'm on required to push the pot to the winning player. The tipper will get the crunched pile. If any stacks were used in the betting, they will remain stacked for the player's convenience. If a non-tipper wins, it's going to be a mess for them to pick up. Sorry.. I'm not wasting my time on someone who isn't paying me.

I always joke with the players about how I'm going to try to deal them the bad beat so we can pay them back their own money.

Of course it's the players money that funds the bad beat. It's a casino. Do you think they're going to give their own money away?


I'd be angry with the dealer too. Give me $5000, for ANY reason, and I'll be the 2nd happiest person walking out the door that day. I'd probably take the next week off and go on vacation. They could not have expected $15,000.

At some point, the percentage of tipping has to be cut off for logical reasons. I've always tipped 10% on my tournament profits. I know tournament pay for dealers is usually garbage, so I try to help. But I've never won more than a few thousand. If I won a million, I would not leave $100,000. I don't really know how much I would tip, though.

I've always assumed that's why big time players stiff dealers. It's unreasonable to tip black chips for 12 hours. But throwing a couple dollars on a $50,000 pot looks beyond cheap. What's the middle ground?

Uncle Sam is plenty aware of what I make. Our tips are 100% reported.

The casino pays us x amount based on how much it takes to attract enough applicants to fill the positions. In order to pay us more, there would need to be a shortage of applicants to fill the positions at the offered wage.


fyp

I was a craps player for 20 years before I played my first hand of poker, and in that game tips did tend to increase as the size of the win did. After playing poker for a few years, my thinking has come around to this:

It's important to distinguish between the recreational player and the "reg" grinding out a living or supplemental income he needs to pay bills and realize there are different considerations. A rec player who is there to party and have a good time may not care at all about whether he wins or loses, and is probably playing with "fun money" the way most tourist craps players are. For those players, winning a big pot is more important for the fun of winning then the dollar amount. I've seen those type of players split the pot with a dealer, and to me that's fine, and I'm happy for the dealer. So if that guy tips $10 or $20 on a $200 pot, fine.

But when someone is a reg grinding a living, his buyin represents not "fun money" but his bankroll, that he must maintain to keep his livelihood viable. For him, splitting a pot or tipping $10 on a $200 pot would be very expensive. As for how it looks, dealers should realize that while you may be pushing me a $400 pot, what you didn't see was my AA getting cracked the down before yours, and me losing my $800 stack. So that $400 pot you're pushing me is nice, but $200 of it was my money to start with, so I'm still down $600, so when I toss you the $1 or $2 tip as I do for every pot, that's why.

Now if I'm having a great night, and am way up, I will often tip larger, to those dealers I consider good dealers. But most nights, it's going to be $1-2 a pot.

So I believe the same principle holds for the large games (though I've never played 100/200 NL.) Yes, it's a $50k pot, but you might not have seen me lose a $100k pot the down before. Besides, if you think about it, the compensation a dealer receives really should not be based upon the amount of money a player is willing to risk. You wouldn't expect a millionaire to pay more for a Big Mac than a poor person, just because they can afford to. Dealers move cards and chips around, and the color of the chips probably shouldn't determine the compensation level.

I would like to comment overall about dealers. I play around 40 hours/week live. I really enjoy going to "my" casino, as I consider it, and most of that enjoyment comes from the way I interact with the fine floor people, brushes, and particularly dealers that work there. We all know each other by name, ask about each others families/health, well being, etc. My wife got cancer 3 years ago, and hasn't been able to go back to the casino, yet dealers who knew her when she played still ask each day how she's doing.

I tip generously when I can, and at least consistently. The dealers help me out too. When there is a promotion based upon hours played in a week, they may happen to "forget" to log me out of bravo system when I go to the bathroom or take a break. The brushes are aware if I am doing well or bad that day, and may recommend a better table. It makes the daily experience much more enjoyable.

So I am a big fan of good dealers, and recognize what a difference it makes to have quality people doing those jobs. I would hate to see the day when we only had minimum wage level dealers in the casino. We have a few poor dealers now. A casino full of them would be horrible.

I'm a little surprised that so few of the players here are willing to condemn those who don't tip. After all, if you are a poker player that tips, as most of those who have commented in this thread seem to be, then you are (at least in the aggregate) hurt more by these non-tipping players than are the dealers.

It's obvious why dealers don't like it when they aren't tipped. If everyone tipped, it seems like they would make more money. However, I think the dealers complaining the most about non-tippers should realize that they probably wouldn't make that much more than they do now if everyone did tip. Assuming that the market for dealers is reasonably efficient, if average dealer tips went up, then dealer wages would go down. In fact, I would expect the average take-down pay in such a scenario to eventually settle to somewhere around where it is now (of course, minimum-wage laws and the stickiness of wages would complicate this scenario).

So why do I say that tipping poker players are the one's hurt worst? Well, let's assume that poker dealers get paid $25/hour. On one model, this is paid completely by the casino through the rake (so no tipping). Here we can say that, barring differences in play style, the wages of the dealer are shared equally by all the players--each player contributes $2.50/hour through the rake to paying the dealer (assuming a constant 10-person table for simplicity).

Instead, let's say that the dealer's $25/hour is paid completely through tips (so obviously it is an average). Here, again, barring differences in play style, each person would pay an average $2.50/hour for the dealer. But suppose 2 people decide to not tip. What happens? Does the dealer just get $20? No.

What'll instead happen is that the casino will have to make up the difference in wages through a rake (or the dealers will quit). So, they'll now tack on a $5/hour rake to each table. But now we have 2 players that are paying only $.50 an hour for a dealer (through rake) and 8 players paying $3 an hour (through rake plus tips). In effect, the tipping player now has to subsidize the non-tippers by paying an extra $.50 an hour in order to hire a dealer.

This is not to make a point about the desirability of a non-tipping vs. tipping model (although I do think it shows at least one advantage to a non-tipping system from the player's perspective), but rather to show that under the current tipping system, if you tip (or even if you don't), you should encourage everyone else to tip as well. It also explains why it is primarily other players (at least at the casino) who try to create the expectation that you should tip, and thus make those who don't tip feel awkward or ostracized.

Take home: tipping is not primarily an issue of players vs. dealers, but tippers vs. non-tippers.

The action you are suggesting is a negative externality.

P. 11, fyp:

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_b...st_tipping.pdf