The point is more money being taken from the tables removes that money from the player pool and that affects all players in that pool negatively. This is a fact based on that 3rd grade math.

All I'm saying is be honest. It's okay to say, "Yeah, I know higher costs for poker is not good for the game if you're a player, but I'm a dealer so fvck you - I don't care."

At least I can respect that. Asserting that live cash hasn't "lost a step" in the last 20 years makes you look dishonest or someone that's only been around a little while.

But mostly I'm just lmao at "So what if the rake is 20% higher??" yet you're probably not saying that about your grocery bill

cool story bro

Exactly. Facts > feels.

Why should anyone tip more unless the pot is more simply because of inflation?

Look how Door Dash actually functions if you think you are describing a hypothetical scenario.

I'm not sure how Door Dash applies here when compared to a UPS driver. If you actually could tip a UPS driver there are no 'savings' to UPS on the tax side .. you're actually increasing their tax burden since they have to pay the employer side of FICA and Medicare on income they didn't intend on forking over in the first place .. up to $160K in 2023.

HOWEVER .. in lower paying jobs where employers 'push' for tips it can be a benefit to the employer since they don't have to pay that income 'up front' to the employee since the patrons are covering it for them. Employers in this case are more than happy to 'only' pay the taxes while not supplying the actual income that is being taxed.

Door Dash/Uber Eats hires independent contractors and therefore doesn't pay any payroll taxes. What they pay from a portion of the fees nor any tips that patrons give those folks are not subject to payroll taxes on the DD side. The contractor (driver) pays the full amount (instead of half) and DD gets a much cleaner 'one time' expense deduction for the portion paid from the service fees .. not the tips.

I guess if you want to compare DD to paying employees under the table then that could fly a bit, but it's a much cleaner expense for DD since they actually are producing 1099s to support the expense. UTT employers are either paying way too much income tax (unlikely) or they are finding some other way to expense those payouts .. which would fail in an audit most likely with no/invalid supporting documentation. GL

As has been played out in this Thread many times over .. 'We' want to quantify a Dealer's income somehow so we can justify what an appropriate tip 'should' be. The issue is always and will continue to be what are the variables for that Dealer .. and do we even care about them.

Do we quantify per Down, Hour, Week or Year?

It's very typical to take a Down and convert it to a Hourly .. and then the OMG thoughts creep in.

It's very typical to ignore that Dealers RARELY (if ever) get 40 hours of Downs per week if they even get 40 hours of shift time per week. GL

Here in Vegas most dealers are part time(because the casinos don’t want to give them benefits they would qualify for if they were full time) and are only paid minimum wage. MINIMUM WAGE, but screw them dealers amirite?

Oh, so like Walmart? Do you tip at Walmart because they took a part-time minimum wage job so that you can give them a fulltime job's earnings?

Lol @ MINIMUM WAGE when most dealers in other parts of the country would love to be paid minimum wage for their base wage from the house.

LOL if you think tipping $2 a hand means dealers make $120k a year. I think toy forgot to include downtime in your calculations.

Just remember this next time you complain about bad dealers or a bad floor decision. Just remember that you get what you pay for.

Remember what? Do you think high rakes = better floor and better dealers? Not from what I've seen. It just means the house makes more money and still expects the players to compensate the dealers.

As for your blind assumptions, I have never complained about bad dealers or bad floor decisions - ever. I just tip you what you're worth.

I'm that rare guy that actually tips solely based on dealer performance. If you are atrocious, then you're getting $0 because fvck you - learn how to hang drywall or something.

On the other end of the spectrum, world-class dealers get $25-$50 per down, even if I don't drag a pot, and if I'm playing HU or short with a stiff, then I'm picking up the slack for him, as well.

Huh? What makes you think I think anything like that? I never said anything like that.

I was mearly stating a fact. The more a position is paid, the higher the quality people you will get to fill it.

That is simple supply and demand.

In general, if good dealers don't make enough money, they will get other jobs that pay them better and the dealer pool will be made up of less skilled dealers who will work for less.

My post that you replied to (#9574) never mentioned dealer wages/tips; I never even mentioned the word dealer once in my post.

I was talking about rake, yet you went off about dealers/floor saying, "you get what you pay for" leaving one only to be forced to believe you were implying that a higher vig leads to better dealers/floor.

Now I see that you either didn't read the post and assumed I was talking about dealer tips, or you're new to poker and conflate rake with tips.


It will attract better quality applicants, but the persons in charge of hiring needs to vet them properly and plenty of those people suck at their jobs, too, and result in incompetents slipping through the cracks.

But none of that has to do with poker dealers because every room I've ever been to, as far as I know and what's been said here by dealers, pays their stellar dealers the same as their incompetent ones with the hope that the players will sort it out for them, and they almost never do.


Yes. This is why even if I don't drag a pot, I tip world-class and stellar dealers lavishly, but I also have the balls to not give a single dollar to dealers who shouldn't be dealers. I do this because casinos/cardrooms are too cheap and lazy to do this themselves.

No flop, no tip.

Win postflop at least 20bb, $1.

Win 100bb+, $5 per 100bb.

Easy.

Silly.

As someone who dealt privately and made good money, and as someone who plays a lot of casino limit poker more recently, the fast dealers at 8/16 O8 can make $2-$4 dollars per hand in a down, a split pot usually $1 comes in from each side, and sometimes $2. Big scoops (which happen more than you would think) can be $4-$5 when the odd chip is in the pot. I need to calculate the avg number of hands this particular casino can get out in one down for my sessions.

I tip $2 per hand almost automatically unless its under $20 total and I will tip $1, I recently saw a bonus pay out $600 to a player new to the casino and he tipped $100.

Lol at slowrolling a player because he only wanted to tip $1 on a big pot. Classy. If his tipping standards don't fit yours, be sure to tip the difference and pick up the slack for him.

This was not my experience with 08 at the tables but ok.

Maybe in a crazy action game but then you might get like 10-11 hands in a down with all the raising and reraising.

Overall I think NL has higher possibility for a big tip than O8 because stacks are flying. But also have a possibility to deal a table with all chops for 30-45 min and one or two medium pots.

We have a player in my room who does this from time to time. This is a player who likes to straddle anywhere from $25 to $100 on a $1-2 NL table on every hand and he tips black chips to the servers who bring him a drink. There have been times at my table when he loses a big pot, sees the winner throw me a buck or two for a tip, and will then toss me $10 for losing the pot because he thinks I wasn't tipped enough by the winner.

That's unusual in my experience. Some regular games develop friendly generous cultures like that, but others attract angry nits who will give $1 if they get at least 3/4, nothing otherwise.

Limit holdem games can be good because hands go very fast. Again, it depends on the group.

Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Try again.

Even going by rake, my statement stands. You get what you pay for.

What do you think rake pays for?

More wrong. You are consistent.

I was making a economic generalization (higher pay attracts a higher quality of worker). You then go to a specific argument that some of the highering people suck. Sure some do. Some are excellent. The generalization still stands though.

Also, you are proving my point about rake. Maybe you haven't made the association, but rake pays the salaries of the back office people in a poker room (such as the people who hire dealers). If you think the people who hire dealers are generally incompetent then you think the pay should be higher for them so you could get a higher quality person in those positions. Where do you think that extra pay comes from?

Ok. Let me go on the record by saying that I would love to live in a world where dealers are paid a decent wage and those are rare and only go to the absolute best dealers in uncommon situations. I 100% wish casinos paid dealers more and players had to tip less.

That said, how does that happen?

Let's make you are a poker room manager. You decide you want to pay your dealers more and tell players that tipping isn't expected.

Where do you think the money to pay your dealers more comes from?

It is going toncome from the rake. You will have to increase the rake you take from the game to pay your dealers extra.

Now what is going to happen after that?

Players who are unaware of your change are still going to tip dealers every hand because that is what they do in every other casino they have ever played in. However, players who are aware of the increased rake are going to play elsewhere. Why are they going to pay increased rake when they can play elsewhere and pay less? A casino increasing it's rake to pay its dealers more is literally going to be driving its customers to their competition through increased rake and a decent portion of the player population will still tip because it is rote. They don't think about it.

I would love to live in an ideal world. I wish i had superpowers and could fly, be invisible, and regenerate from wounds, point is, we don't. We have to live in a world that actually exists. In this real world, you get what you pay for. That is just basic economics.

If he thinks walking a beer over and putting it in front of him is worth $100, then he should tip you $100 for dealing a hand and pushing a big pot - regardless to whom.

Like I said before, when I'm playing HU and it's against what you consider a stiff and there is a worthy dealer in the box (e.g., someone who can deal mixed-TD efficiently without getting stressed or confused), then I pick up the slack for the other player but I do it in a way that isn't disrespectful to the other player.

I want to keep the dealer happy because he or she deserves appropriate compensation and I want my opponent happy and it's just a plain dick move to attempt to shame a person in that way.


This is all cute.

I see you're in a stage in life where you think higher costs for services provided to consumers automatically mean they are getting better/more for their money and there's not a living soul walking in America that is overpaid for the job they perform.

You also seem to think that when a cardroom raises the rakes that the increased rake goes to pay salaried cardroom employees and not the majority of it going to the casino while a few peanuts go to staff.

Were you around (20 or so years ago) when Becky raised rakes exorbitantly for the WSOP? Guess who got all that money? We know it wasn't the dealers, floor, management, or other staff based on this and other forums and the yells from the mountaintops. And us players got a worse experience with all the break-in dealers.

But I'll touch on your scenario where rakes would be raised to compensate for dealer pay yet people would still tip anyway.

No. Dealer tips would not be allowed. That means if someone ignores the no tipping signs and tips, the dealer hands it back and says he or she is not allowed to accept tips. If the player insists, then the dealer insists that he or she cannot accept tips or their job is at risk. This is not rocket science for players to figure out.

Also, raked games should all be changed to time games. Yeah, it's harder to "put it past" the players but everyone would know how much they're paying from the outset and if they're getting good value for the cost.