Ehhh. Standard tourney tip for as long as I remember has been 3%, yeah? Obviously some people tip more, some tip less. Often the mincashers won't tip at all. Agree?

So if every player tips $10 on a $300 tourney, total tips are 3.33% of the prize pool, just slightly better than standard, and that's assuming even the mincashers tip 3%. Easy to say OMG you tipped only $10 on a $5000 win, but 90% of the just field tipped $10 on a $340 loss, and that wouldn't have happened without the addon.

I definitely am not a tip-avoidant person, so let me know where my thoughts or assumptions are off here, as I respect your posts and experience.

A lot of places will specifically use "tournament staff" in their fee description/ listing instead of "dealer appreciation" or any other phrase that specifically states "dealers". This is done so management can legally distribute tournament tips to anyone who works in the tournament/tournament room or had an administrative function tied to said tournament This means anyone from management/office workers to tournament supervisors to porters. Under the "tournament staff" wording the dealers are lucky to get 50% of that money to split amongst themselves.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

That's between the casino and its employees. Perhaps the dealers should be mad at their employer for misleading players and essentially stealing their tips.

TLDR: Once you see just how little tournament dealers make, you understand why there is a "forced" tip and also why they really feel the need for the winners to toss in a little extra.

I don't disagree with you really. The 3% is generally the number the house will one way or another mandate for the dealers with any winner tips being a bonus. IME the mincashers tip very little if any, but the top few will usually tip, some much better than others obviously.

If you want to see it from the staff's perspective, it goes like this. Dealers are paid per down, so for every 30 minutes they are dealing they get $x. At the end of the tournament the TD tallies up the total tip money and divides that by the total number of dealer downs to get $x. If a dealer dealt 15 downs in the tournament he gets 15x. Simple right. Tournament downs never pay even close to as much as live cash game downs do if there is no extra tips from the winners. That is just the way it is everywhere. (I hate saying that because I've not worked everywhere, but I never hear of the places that give 6%+ to dealers) All I am really saying is that if it weren't for tips from the winners, no current poker dealer would consider keeping their job if they had to only deal tournaments.

To be fair, without the add on, there would be no dealers. Imagine 100 players with no add on and at the end, the winners tip a total of $100. $100 compared to $1,000 they get with the add on. Without a forced tip, there is a real chance that the dealers are working for less than $7/hr. I promise you that they aren't making a whole lot with the forced tip either. As someone that has dealt and seen what these dealers are making, I would probably not tip until I have at least doubled my money. From there my tip would increase with my winnings. Of course I like to see my dealers do well, but I don't have anything against anyone that doesn't tip on tournament wins. Just remember that those players that "tipped" $10 on a $340 loss didn't do it because they wanted to tip the dealer. They did it because they didn't want to be at a disadvantage to every other player that did. I prefer to just give everyone the extra chips, charge an extra $10 from the start, and just give the $10 from every entry to the staff. It really is 6 of one, half dozen of the other.

I used to think that way until one of the Borgata dealers told me her hourly for big Open tournaments. Never again, they are very well compensated and somehow are not charging much rake either.

If you want to lead by example I saw it in full force last night ...

Poker Dealer playing in his own room ran his stack from $210 to $1200 in one down. He tipped $1 on small pots and $2 on large pots ... and then $10 when the Dealer pushed. One of the hands included a High Hand worth $200 of which he tipped the Dealer an 'instant' $5 when she pushed back in later after the hand held up.

Depending on the Player this could've gone much better for the Dealer, so it's up to you to decide how this Dealer/Player went about his rush which included ...

... KK that was behind two pair on the Flop and setted the Turn after calling all-in
... AA all-in PF against 2 short stacks
... 77 that Flopped quads (77A) and got paid by AK on all 3 streets
... TT that Flopped a set v QQ all-in PF

I haven't had a 1/2 rush like that in a while, but they do still seem to happen. I call it 'seat-ology', basically just stay away from that one seat at the table you can't seem to beat no matter what the spot. GL

This kind of logic is exactly why the majority of people do tipping wrong and why ****ty dealers will always have a gig.

Although I totally agree that 'seat-ology' is completely baseless from a math perspective, I've yet to find a poker player who hasn't at least acknowledged a 'hot seat', 'rush' or 'hot card' during conversation. Any affect it may have on your game playing decisions is a leak in the long run. The same can be said for Players who don't make 'regular' actions because they're "not hitting their draws today."

What I'm not seeing is how that type of thinking ties into tipping 'wrong' and certainly doesn't explain the variance in skill level across the Dealer realm.

There are many posts here and I don't think we've established right and wrong tipping methods, plenty of opinions. And I've yet to really tie a tipping method to a style of play either ... and I waste a lot of my time at the table observing things unrelated to winning poker. My commentary really didn't add to my original post anyway ... I'll try to limit useless babble in the future as it did take away from what I thought was a complementary post .. my bad. GL

PS .. In the 'people can change' category ... I recently observed a Player who historically was a pretty tight/grudge holding tipper 'all of a sudden' start tipping as much as 10% PER HAND lately. A $1000+ PLO pot generated a $45 tip ... of which the Dealer definitely hesitated before raking into their toke box. (In a not so subtle side note ... it was the first down for the Dealer and every chip made a very loud clunk in the box as it hit the exposed metal!!)

I think it's related to the person's innate sense of fairness. When someone gives you a nice gift or helps you out in a significant way you feel the need to give back. Some players feel like this at the table when they're on a streak and their only way to give back is to tip the dealer a little extra. In many cases those are the type of player who will withhold tips from dealers who they feel have been making them run bad, so it probably evens out overall. Just like your guy with the $45 tip. He'll go back into grudge mode eventually.

It's hard on us dealers too when we see the worst dealer in the room getting the biggest tip. We have to let it go because faster/more efficient/more accurate dealers are going to wind up in more situations like that where a player is happy and on a run, so they will make more in the long run.

i've yet to find any GOOD poker player who does these things. i've seen plenty of bad ones who will avoid a "hot " player not not chase draws they usually would because they're missing.

and the poster above you is correct-i've seen so many terrible dealers get tipped amazingly well by some well intended donk which is why they still have jobs.

De-rail, I’ve definitely chatted about lucky seats or hot seats or stated I’m in a good seat or whatever. But I’m very aware that it’s all nonsense, I’m just talking about something that other people believe in.

Right, that's just gambler vernacular for variance. Same for 'running bad' for the opposite result. The only affect it should have on anyone's playing is to capitalize on how people perceive variance. That is, if people think you're on a rush, then step on their neck more - they'll let you get away with it, turning -EV plays into +EV plays. How that ties into tipping wrongly, is these same cats who believe in lucky seats, unlucky seats, lucky dealers, unlucky dealers, etc., are the same cats who tip based on table results.

I think it's tough to deny that the correct tipping method is to tip based on dealer performance, and only dealer performance. When, and how often the tipping occurs, (e.g., after each down, after winning a hand), is debatable, yet you see people tipping ****ty dealers because they won a pot. That perpetuates the problem, but I'm sure ****ty dealers don't mind nor even realize they're ****ty dealers.

First they came for the great dealers, and I nothing becasue I was listening to music, and all dealers are the same to me.

Then they came for the marginal dealers and still, I said nothing becasue I was watching a movie to deal with how slow the game had become.

Finally, when they came for my pot that was pushed to another player, there was no one left to help me becasue all the dealers and the floors who knew the rules had moved on to better paying jobs.

Thoughts on how one should handle tipping dealers at a charity event which is hosted at (and has regular dealers from) the ballroom of a major casino? Not a cash prize, but sizable value.

You won a seat to the Main. There is no right or wrong amount. Give what you feel is appropriate. (Personally I would probably toss $200 into the kitty)

Classic 'It Depends' moment but there are cases where the Dealers at these events are also donating their tips (or at least a portion) to the charity. You would have to find out.

I'm assuming that you paid for a ticket to get into the event, which could be treated similarly to an entry fee. If it was a freeroll then definitely donate something right away based on the 'item' value. If it was a ME seat (and you paid a ticket to get in) then just earmark a portion of any winnings back at the charity for sure.

Some folks have a max tip in a BBJ type spot or they will just go off a percentage with a 1% minimum? Can be tough if you don't have much cash on you either at the time.

These are always interesting discussions. Do casino regulars seek out their favorite slot attendant and tip them if they win the car at the end of the month? Large non-cash item ... but the attendant 'helped' them earn all those entries into the drawing. GL

Wow ... almost a month and this thread needs a bump? Here it is ...

As most of you know I have a history of comments in the tipping thread but I just played in a WSOP ME Seat freeroll tournament yesterday and I will be tipping quite a few of the Dealers the next time I see them at a cash table. They were just pumping out the hands since my table was very passive with many times per orbit where the Button would raise and take it down and very few hands made it past the Flop. They weren't getting any breaks either with most of them having to work through an 11 table lineup.

I made it all the way to 13th ... My bust out was KK v 99 and I got 4-flushed on the Turn. When the Dealer got pushed off the table to Brush he was kind of nervous and I just walked up and almost gave him a hug to reassure him that it was "OK" (this time).

Multiple times I had Floors and Dealers peering at my stack to see how it was going and there was quite a few pained faces at the bust out. One Floor even volunteered to 'take a walk' with me so I didn't try to throw an ATM or Player's kiosk out the window!! (Not that I'm a violent person, but .. you know)

It was very nice to see some of them invested in my potential success ... GL

Is a 200 dollar tip on a 5k bad beat jackpot standard/fair/acceptable?

Feels pretty reasonable to me.
I dont think theres a "standard" though.

In a game for $400 today, sitting on about $430. Get in a hand where I flop bottom set with 3 way action and GII when V who has me covered turns top 2. I get a double plus a bit. I tip the dealer $7 and in return I get a snide look and a sarcastic thanks. Like I was supposed to toss her a green or something. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

I find that basically impossible to believe that a dealer is doing so well that $7 on a $800 pot drew sarcasm and a sneer. 99% you are misreading the tone or she was emphasizing the thanks to call attention to it because someone else wasn’t tipping etc.

Next time don't bother. Tips should be reserved for dealers that offer acceptable service. This includes attitude imo.

line check here to see if I'm an *******

at a major casino on a saturday night playing poker.

waitress comes by, I order 2 beers (one for me and one for my buddy but just gonna have her bring them both to me). she comes back 40 minutes later with one beer. I remind her I ordered 2. She comes back 20 mins later (so now a full hour from when I ordered) with 2nd beer. By now my buddy has finished the first beer which I gave him, kinda defeating the point of us enjoying our brews together. Anyways, she tells me its $6 per beer. How much are you tipping here?

How much would you tip if you had only ordered one beer? ... and then cut it in half for the delay and the screw up.

I don't really use the service staff much since we get free fountain service in the room and there's a bar right outside the poker room. Sure I don't want to miss a hand, but with all the moaning and groaning that happens in almost every poker room I just go straight to the source. The wait staff in my home casino has it's own bar tender off the floor so they actually have a much further walk than I do.

Are you sure it was 40 minutes? I know time both flies and slows to a crawl at the poker table when it comes to these things. GL

I'm sure on the times because I was texting my friend at the time and I went back and looked at the time stamps. I was less annoyed at the long initial wait (probably not anything the waitress can control) but more so that she forgot my order (she never wrote it down, of course)