I play in a room where dealers put tips in their trays. They also use drop chips and the cash value chips also go into their tray. When they hit a break table, they turn their tray into the cage, where everything is counted and credited.

Now, in this room, all employees are treated well and there are minimal disruptions to promised shifts. Player abuse is not tolerated and servers are treated with respect. Everyone knows they have a good gig and don't want to screw it up. This is reinforced when the occasional employee is caught stealing and gets the boot.

The part I find a bit curious is that it includes corporation employees that, while not stealing, are abusive, in any way, to players. They too go the way of the dodo.

All in all, it is amazing what the values and morals of the person in charge can create.

Where is this room so that I can get a dealing job there? I've never been tempted to steal money from the pot for my own benefit, but I'd have to make an exception to work in this room.

For those who don't understand, my hands are constantly moving from the pot to the tray in order to make change for players and for rake. In every room that I've worked, the chips in the tray always balance to a fixed amount. But put me in a room where the excess counts as tips? I could see myself easily making an extra $200-$300 per night without breaking a sweat.

Wow, pure genius. No one ever thought of doing that before ... except everyone! I would give you less than a week before being caught and, if you were lucky, fired.

This doesn't address the idiocy of their system. Black metal tip boxes aren't that expensive. Or just do it like Vegas and let them put tokes in a shirt pocket.

??? are you for real bro? a) there’s still surveillance and house procedures like clearing your hands that prevent you from doing this. b) that **** is already illegal and there are punishments for getting caught stealing thousands and thousands of dollars.

No, cuz, I'm not for real. But surveillance and procedures aren't a valid substitute for common sense. Tips co-mingled in the tray are akin to providing pens with invisible ink and special glasses to the players. "But don't mark the cards! We have cameras!"

They would get caught the way most thieving dealers get caught: by the players.

Sadly, I don't think he knows what a positive work environment is.

You're all missing the point. Can anyone think of a single benefit to having the dealers keep their tips in the tray?

I played in a room this weekend where there are two collection points by the Dealer .. one for tips and one for rake. Both areas are converted to green chips and then dropped in the appropriate place. Tips are combined here, so the green chips go in a 'standard' tip box that doesn't leave the table.

Talking point #1 .. I play PLO, and there is a PLO BBJ, but there's no promo drop point. I'm assuming that they just take a percentage of the rake and put it towards the BBJ?

Talking point #2 .. There can be over $5k in the tray at any given time, even at 1/2 NL and maybe more. BUT when the Dealer sells chips the cash goes into a drop box a-la a table game slot in the table never to be seen. Dealers only verify with a Floor a sale of $500 or more .. and only $1000 or more for some Dealers. How in the world to they balance a tray from Dealer to Dealer .. AND how do they catch which Dealer messed up? I didn't even see the Dealers glance at the tray when they sat down.

While I like the idea of #1, I'm really not sure about #2 at all. Normally I would talk the staff up a bit, but I was too busy actually playing .. and the Floors in this room basically never stop moving .. so I didn't take the time to 'investigate'. GL

PS .. This may not really belong in Tipping, Mods feel free to move to breakroom or low content.

I believe some rooms have dealers carry their own trays because it eliminates (most) chip runs and if there are any shortages the dealer is automatically put on the hook for it rather than having to track it down and have the room make it good. I've worked in rooms where each dealer had to count the rack and arrange to get it fixed before dealing a hand, which is annoying for everyone.

It still seems too risky to be a good idea IMHO. It's also less likely an error selling chips will get caught. If the rack is a set amount and it's off $100 you know something went wrong with an exchange or chip run. If it's mixed with someone's chips they might just think they had a better/worse night than they thought, or they'd have to have surveillance check every table they dealt.

Some benefits:
* Probably fewer fills needed
* Don't need to have dealers count the rack periodically

But I agree with you, it's a bad system that can encourage risky behavior.

As info, the largest poker room in the world, Commerce Casino, has dealers carry their own trays around and put all their tips in the tray, and they do it with cash value chips, no specialty tipping chips. Or at least, that is my recollection of how they do it from the last time I was there 5 years ago.

While you can see on both Live at the Bike and Hustler Casino Live that the Dealers carry their own trays you don't see it in Texas streams and I don't know of a room in the Midwest that has this system.

Every motion causes time to be lost or gained in a room. It's amazing even in my regular 8 table room that 'every' Dealer has their own way of arranging their $240 tray and it's almost life or death to them to get a fill done if they fall below $140 in white. (This room uses lammers and chip runners for Player BIs) Fills take time as well, but in the long run how many hands do you lose? Perhaps quite a few, but then management must have their reasoning for the procedures. GL

I used to work in a room where we carried our own trays but we also carried toke boxes with us, and the trays had a fixed amount of chips in them. We used to have our trays verified by the supervisors prior to each break and overages would be kept by the casino while dealers were responsible for paying for shortages out of our tips. Then the Dept of Labor did an audit of the room and determined that having tipped employees be responsible for shortage variances was not compliant with the casino taking tip credits.

Two results were 1) the casino was required to reimburse the dealers for all of the shortages that had been paid and was also required to retroactively pay us a recalculated overtime amount based on true minimum wage and not based on minimum wage for tipped employees and 2) the poker room quickly did away with carrying our own trays and installed permanent trays that stayed at each table.

My primary room is like this. It's not bad unless the dealer is just old and slow and can't count quickly or the previous dealer left a mess in the well. Otherwise takes about 10 seconds for the good dealers to verify the tray.

Anyone who has had to sit through a slow dealer doing a fill in a time rake game can tell you the benefits. It’s also better for the dealers because they can arrange the tray however they like.

As always a dealer is way more likely to get fired for any other number of reasons than stealing. It is exceedingly rare because there are cameras everywhere, and stealing a significant enough amount to be worth it will be incredibly obvious.

Agree with your sentiment, but honestly how often does a time rake game need a fill? Most places I have played (with the exception of Borgata, IIRC) there isn't enough in a rack to handle most buyins or rebuys or even significant add ons for a time rake game. The stakes high enough to make it a time rake game puts that normally off the table.

Usually change can be made from the pot for odd ball bet amounts. Though will be some times you have to use the rack.

Change for rake is coming at most once per down.

IME (admittedly limited) experience for time rake games, the rack doesn't really get much activity. But as I note, it is limited and I could be completely wrong for other places.

I was just reading the last page or two of this thread, mainly the part about how tipping procedures can make it easier for dishonest dealers to steal, and it got me thinking...

How come more places don't use clear plastic tipping containers?

Clear containers make it a lot harder for a dealer to palm money out of a large pot and drop it with their tip (especially if they're stealing larger denomination chips). I once caught a dealer stealing from a pot he pushed me. He had one of those metal tip boxes, and the only reason I knew something was amiss was because he made a mistake dropping the tip so that I distinctly heard two chips drop when I had only tipped him one.

In 5/10 or deep stacked 2/5 it's pretty easy for a dealer to palm green $25 chips and drop them with their tips, and if they're good it is hard to spot, even if security is looking directly for it on camera. Clear containers make it obvious if larger denomination chips are dropping that aren't being tipped by the players. Sure a dealer could still drop chips in their pockets or something, but that is going to be a lot easier for security and players to spot.

The answer is obvious dealers don’t want the 400-600 a night in overtips they are blessed with sloshing around in front of others view so they cut down on tipping. Just like the rake boxes casino doesn’t want it’s massive income visible

Did you say anything?

Clear tip boxes make it harder for dealers to steal your $

A lot of players are sharp enough to notice 25$ missing from their pot. And taking such a risk for $25 here and there would be a terrible move.

I'm not saying it's smart on the dealer's part, nor that it's even that common. Most dealers are not going to take the risk. However I think you might underestimate how much cash a crooked dealer can take off the table, and how hard it is to catch. Like I said I caught a dealer doing exactly this, and the only way I knew was because I tipped them with a single $2 chip and I heard two chips drop into their chip box.

I'll give you an example of a typical situation in splashy deep-stack S Florida 2/5 games... Button straddles to 10, SB fold, BB call, limp, limp, raise to $40, call, call, couple more folds and calls.

Already I'm rounding and ballparking pot size, and in the games I play in I'm one of the more aware players. Then after the flop you might get an $80 bet, a couple calls with various combinations of red and green chips, a raise to $275, short stack all-in, with a side pot between big stacks...

You get the picture. This all happens very rapidly, and you often end up with $1k plus in random combos of red, green and black chips. I constantly catch dealers making honest mistakes counting down chip stacks, often for $100+ at a time. Usually players will catch these mistakes, but not always.

As you can imagine these types of games are heaven for even a modestly-skilled sleight-of-hand artist.

Game with no white chips on the table, how you tipping dealers, lousy dealers at that.

Umm, probably the same way people tip in games where the minimum chip is a green, a black, or bigger.