Yes? But I think this is a trick question.

Where do you play where you believe this actually happens regularly?

My room has a BBJ at all times and runs high hand promotions at certain times.

On a Sunday with no high hands the room is 1/2 to 2/3 full. On a Sunday with $1000 high hands the room is completely full with substantial waiting lists.

Rec players chasing one lucky hand.

Furthermore, you get 1-2 players sitting at 2-5 tables because they're itching to play and are unwilling to wait 3 hours for a seat at their preferred game.

I agree that high hand bonuses bring more people in when they are going, and if there are going to be promotions, this is what should be done. I was asking about BBJs bringing in more people when they are bigger which is what some had been claiming.

While I don't disagree or agree with many of the arguments mode recently in this thread, I feel that most of them are splitting hairs in order to dodge the greater purpose of the thread (dealer tips). Do people really base their tips on the theoretical amount each person puts into the pot (and therefore pays rake)?

It seems to me to be a number of angels dancing on the head of a pin type of conversation designed to feel better about not tipping the dealer.

P.S. I don't want to get into theoretical conversations about tipping in general as I would probably agree with the higher rake/higher pay side anyway.

Well, your feelings are incorrect. The side discussion was about rake, not about how or if rake affects tips.

That said, rake does affect tips. If you're a dealer, you certainly don't want to "agree with the higher rake" side of things. More rake = less money on the table. Less money on the table = fewer hands to be dealt. Fewer hands dealt = fewer opportunities to tip the dealer.

My personal feelings on tipping is that it should be abolished. If there were no tipping allowed, you wouldn't have a 10K post thread on tipping. And yes, I've heard all the arguments before in favor of a tipping model, and they are all complete rubbish.

However, this is the model that is currently in place and it's not entirely the fault of the dealers, so I tip. But I tip based on performance and performance only. The stellar dealers get tipped whether I win or lose. If I don't drag a pot, I'm giving a significant tip at the end of their downs and it doesn't matter if I'm up or down on the session. If I'm playing HU or short vs stiffies and there is a stellar dealer in the box, I'm picking up the slack and toking for them.

If you're a shitty dealer, though, I am not going to enable your poor career choice and harm the good dealers by giving you money; I'm giving your cut to those who deserve it.

I'm not following why less money equals less hands.

But I'm reminded of a 5-10 reg from several years ago when I was dealing in another state. The 5-10 (and bigger) games were on a time rake, but 5-10 still contributed $2 to the jackpot fund each hand, while larger games were exempt.

This particular player was trying to win me over to his side in the push to eliminate the $2 jackpot fee from 5-10 (as if my opinion carried any weight with the boss).

"The pots will be bigger if we don't give $2 each hand. Bigger pots equals bigger tips. Don't you want bigger tips?"

This was a guy who would tip $1 on a $7000 pot. I rolled my eyes and laughed out loud.

HU fixed limit game, no rake.

Each player has $500.

Player 1's EV is $50/hr against player 2.

Player 1, on average, will bankrupt player 2 in 10 hours.


Same scenario, but now let's add in a rake that takes $5 per hand.

Let's say the dealers and players push out 50 hands per hour on average.

Now $250 per hour is vanishing off the table.

Even if both players were AI and 0EV against one another (the best scenario for the dealer in this situation), the game would break after 200 hands instead of 500 hands without a rake.

Of course I didn't factor in dealer tokes as it doesn't change the principle at work here.

That's pretty abstract. Or you're describing a freeze-out tournament. The room I deal in has an ATM machine in the corner. And most of the players get paid every Friday. Or every other Friday. And there's usually a list of other players waiting for a seat to open.

Bro, you didn't understand a very basic economics principle, so I put it in a poker example that would easily reflect it. It applies to all poker games.

You really can't understand how if less money is taken out of the poker player economy via rakes, losing players will lose money more slowly and will stay in action longer; break-even players will now become winning players, and winning players will increase their win rates and how all of these situations will make the games thrive more (i.e., more people playing regularly) and how this also benefits dealers?

Yeah, you forgot to mention that you also have a casino cage where someone can take cash advances out on their credit cards.

Jeez, with ATM's, paydays every Friday, and waiting lists on a Tuesday at 11am, why does your room even run any promotions at all? Shiit, why do people even play poker at all... just grab some money out of the ATM in the corner...

But neither the number of players, nor their checking accounts are unlimited. If your room closes and the game runs full until closing in theory most rake doesn’t matter, but at some point enough money comes off the table that the list and ATM aren’t enough to compensate.

Players all have a stop loss though it might be empty pockets and maxed ATM. It is still a point when they leave the game and when enough players leave game breaks.

My attempted point was that Players are more apt to come in for 'special events' as opposed to something that runs 24/7. Perhaps we are saying the same thing with your use of the word 'qualifications'?



Rake is either paid directly or 'paid' with the lost opportunity cost of it not remaining in an available stack.

(Australia?) 1/3, $300 max with a 10%-$10 rake .. With $2-300 coming off the table every hour the table will be broke in less than 10 hours if no one cashes out and/or no one adds on. SOMEBODY IS PAYING THE RAKE .. someone (new Players/add on) need to replenish the rake in order for the game to keep running. GL

Yes, I was wonder how we got 'this far' away from an exact tipping discussion.

We have a Player that you never have to see his cards to know if he was bluffing or not. If he gives the Dealer a 'larger' tip, then he's rewarding the Dealer for putting a card on the Board that he needed. If he doesn't tip or only tips 'small' then he is 'rewarding' himself for pulling off a bluff by giving the Dealer less. What I don't know is how it works if he used the card the Dealer put out, but it was still a bluff! My guess is that he rewards the Dealer for putting the card out that he used as a tool to bluff.

I think tipping 'on average' will cost a Player less than having the house just 'pay more'. In my most visited room LOTS of the Dealers make way more than the wage they are being taxed on and that's a larger portion of their motivation to work in that room. IMO if they were to be put on a 'fixed' wage then it would have to be well above their current rate in order for them to continue in that position.

The motivation and morale issues have been discussed in this thread. When tips are pooled and/or when someone is not receiving any more or less in pay for their effort then why apply the extra effort? GL

After many years and over 9500 posts, what tipping issue do you think hasn't been brought up that is imperative to the discussion?

That's what dealers here say, but it doesn't appear to hold up to scrutiny.

After 12 years and over 9500 posts, what tipping issue do you think hasn't been brought up that is imperative to the discussion?

That's what dealers here say, but it doesn't appear to hold up to scrutiny.

Then you are advocating dealers to work for less.
Current…Wage$ + Tip$ = DealerPay1
Suggested…Wage$ + Raise$ = DealerPay2

For DealerPay2 = DealerPay1, Raise$ must equal current Tip$. While Raise$ will come from the House, it really comes from players via rake. Unless you believe the house is going to voluntarily subsidize the raise from the house net then the Raise$ must equal Tip$. Unless you outright, absolutely ban all tips and then enforce this either dealers on average make less or players on average pay more. Reality is probably both because the house will take a cut plus taxes and other costs.

What this really means is at best average dealer pay remains the same. The good dealers make less and poor dealers make more while low $ tippers pay more and high $ tippers pay less.

Long term the dealer quality likely degrades even were the policy implemented everywhere. A former local room preCOVID was normal android postCOVID opened with a tip pooling pay. This room could not really get experienced dealers to come back so they had a very green dealer staff. Without the direct tip incentive the dealer progress was very muted. These brand new dealers actually preferred to brush over dealing because it was easier.

The tip system can be a brutal meritocracy. When you are brand new and likely suck, your wage reflects this. It does give strong incentive to improve and such improvement is often rapid. Those that can’t quickly improve often self select to exit the field or just accept they will remain on the lower end of that scale. Which might still be a better wage than their alternatives.

Huh? No matter how many times I reread this excerpt, the bolded seems like a non sequitur. If the house raises rake to equal the aggregate amount of tips, then bans tipping, and then gives each dealer an extra paycheck reflecting on average their cut of the new rake, why wouldn't those exactly balance?

Caveat: the above is static. Dynamically, and in theory, adverse selection occurs when good dealers move to somewhere with non-pooled tips, the aggregate rake drops as the remaining dealers get fewer hands out, the house freezes future raises, etc. Obviously stickiness is a thing; people don't instantly leave jobs much less move house to a new city.

But anyway the excerpt seems to be talking about the static case, so I don't get how the last sentence is warranted.

I'm enough of an econ fan to think money is mostly fungible and the jackpot subthread is a tempest in a teacup, especially if it depends on whether the "rake" goes in one drop box or two.

In theoretical perfect competition, the house takes whatever rake it can take and the players play there only if the value received from a fair game (fun, edge in the game, self-deception in feeling better at poker than they are, etc.) at least equals the price.

But poker isn't a perfectly competitive industry. No US state except maybe Texas (?) and Montana (??? I doubt it) allows unrestricted entry to the market. The network effect in poker is strong -- I can't just go start up a game across town if none of my opponents is inclined to go across town. Some metro areas have only one or two viable poker rooms. And the rake is typically highly regulated, including additional "player funded promotions" such as jackpots.

Even in single-room metros, there are some market principles in effect. Players could go play craps instead, or go to a movie, or stay home and read^B^B^B^Bsurf TikTok. They could save up to go to LA or Vegas.

So.... all of this to say that most of the folks in this thread, when they get on the list, have opted to play for a certain price including the jackpot drop. And on here, we all have a vague idea what social pressures will prevail toward tipping if we score a big jackpot. So whether all the rake goes on one trap door, or whether part of it goes in another lock box, is mostly an accounting function to please the state regulators.

Differentiating between "getting some of your money back" via a jackpot, versus just winning a $100 pot, is a distinction without much difference. If you don't want to tip much for whatever reason, fine, but jackpot accounting is a flimsy excuse you shouldn't even need.

You hit on two of the favorite criticisms:

1 - "paying dealers a fair wage would cost more than average tips do"

2 - "dealers will become lazy"

1 - Tell me what you think a fair wage is for a dealer? It seems like many here think a dealer should make $80/hr to pitch cards and babysit. Even at that rate it would only cost each player $4 per down.

2 - Then they will be fired, as with all other jobs when an employee isn't cutting it.

It seems interesting you chose to clip the last sentence of that paragraph.

“ Reality is probably both because the house will take a cut plus taxes and other costs”

So most likely outcome is the both lose case. Also since the best dealers will by definition lose, they lose incentive to work harder. Overtime dealing quality reduces, rake collected reduces and rake increases to cover.

Capitalism involves competing and competition works. Tips are a form of capitalism.

Yeah, I cut it after the non sequitur. You seem to be saying "[E]ither dealers on average make less or players on average pay more" even in the theoretical case. And then the next sentence seems to be piled on top of that -- even if in theory the return to dealers would exactly balance, in the real world the house takes a cut and the govt takes a cut etc.... But even without considerations of the last sentence, you're making a flat statement that either dealers would make less or players would pay more.

But meh, parsing each other's posts sentence by sentence gets -EV pretty quickly.


Capitalism is terrific in the 95% of the cases where the underlying assumptions are "good enough" to accurately predict outcomes. In the US, dealer compensation is based on "voluntary" player contributions and accompanying social pressure. Some elements of perfect competition theory still apply, but it takes quite a creative mind to see that as a clear example of capitalism.

Most players tip on each pot, incenting dealers to deal more hands. That's pretty close to capitalism. Personable, physically attractive, or technically competent dealers likely earn more tips. If those attributes add to the utility of players playing, that could also be considered an incentive toward utility-maximizing behavior. (Especially if your economic model doesn't carry any negative externalities for propagating sexism or lookism.)

But tipping isn't inherently more capitalistic. It could be up to the house to incent whatever behaviors they think increase profitability, rather than up to individual players to incent what the players want. Most of the Fortune 500 works without tips.

And BTW "no barriers to entry of new producers" is a bedrock assumption to almost any model of perfect competition, and is violated in virtually every market, so a pure form of "capitalism" is pretty much a mirage.

"All models are wrong but some are useful" - George Box (1978)

What room do you play in where the tables are 10-handed? Most rooms are 9-handed and increasingly many are moving to 8-handed.

What room do you play in where dealers don't get breaks? 2 tables and a break is common in most markets.

At $4 per player per down, dealers aren't making $80/hour but are closer to $43/hour.

Actually no. Much of the Fortune Uses something very similar to TIPS. It is called performance bonuses. Based on someone’s performance they get extra $. The difference is that a mgr is deciding the level of performance instead of customers. But tips are simply a form of performance based incentive. So are performance bonuses which btw need no be annual.

You have decided to claim I said tips are a perfect form of competition. They are not. But guess what our economy isn’t perfect capitalism either. Yes a “good looking” (whatever one’s definition of that may be) will sometimes get tipped based on that non-performance quality. Guess what, sometimes in any position get rewarded for a non personal performance quality. Might be looks, might be one step in just as prior efforts take hold, might just be the mood of a mgr when one gets rated.

Btw being technically competent and personable ARE part of a dealers job; a major part. Getting tipped for these qualities is a good thing imo. You seem to believe otherwise.

You claim tipping is not inherently more capitalistic. But you don’t say what you are comparing it to. I will assume you are comparing to a completely no tip method. I contend you are wrong. Letting customers pay the better dealers more is good. Better than everyone gets the same imo.

Agreed. And most dealers are not making that. 43/hr is probably top .1% of dealers in public rooms (not private games)

I don't tip a dealer to "pitch cards". He gets tipped for running the game and getting bets right ... along with a few other skills, and I do mean skills.

I take offense at your low opinion of what a skilled dealer does.