1.) Correct. Let's change my example to $8.67+(9*.85)= $16.32/hr. This is a very good wage for no college degree.

2.) Tips are taxed at the same rate as any other earned income. The rate depends on their tax bracket. Everyone pays taxes, dealers aren't special.

3.) Angel of the Winds' website states they give a benefits package. I can't speak for others. Clearly, some casinos are doing this.

4.) $16.32/hr is almost double minimum wage. That is a great wage for dealing cards. If a worker wants to slack off, they should be fired and replaced. Further, I'd rather have a higher rake and no tips. Less BS drama.

Are you kidding me?

The only people who could possibly think this are long-term-unemployed post-high-school dropouts who have never actually worked for a living in their lives.

$16/hr is great ... if you have no experience, a prison record, and/or a major drug problem.

For anybody else over the age of 19, no way.

I've been in the industry for a long, long time, and I can 100% speak for what is going on there -- both in Washington and in other states.

The "we offer benefits" line on their website refers to full-time tribal hires. Maybe some top-level back-office positions. Nobody else.

Then you should apply. Tell the management you'll deal all their games and babysit all their problem children for "almost double minimum wage". By all means, make them an offer.

So why aren't you doing this?

And I'd rather have fewer 18-year-old "professionals" that will be sleeping on park benches in a few years. So I guess we all have to bear up under our personal burdens for the time being.

q/q

Unemployment rate is 9.1%. There are millions more who are unemployed and wants to work but not being counted in the 9.1%. Additional millions are under employed working part time for less than $10/hour.

What's the exhaustive list of requirements to be a poker dealer again?

Do you know what the median income is for other people with that level of job history and education?

If card game dealers were all out of business, what other jobs that pay anywhere near the same are they qualified to do?

---

We'll never know, but I agree with ginko. If you were to fire every last dealer and open the jobs up at $17/hr, you'd fill them all up quickly, and after a quick break-in period where you fired and hired a few more, things would be back to normal pretty quickly.

Yes, the new dealers would suck... ...for a little while.

Some of the dealers in this thread can't see that through their entitlement-colored glasses.

My wife, with an advanced degree, lost her high-paying job a when the economy went to crap and went to a new job for 35k/year. ...or, you know, $16.82/hr.

She beat out dozens of other people each with a laundry list of history, qualifications and education wishing they could work for $16.82.

I think they'd suck for longer. Or at least the overall quality of the profession would go decrease as they'd have very little incentive to be efficient.

I think I understand what you're getting at. Yes, there are many people who would be very appreciative and jump at the chance to make $16/hr. at a job that does not require any education. But you need look no further than your local DMV facility, to see how what happens to the level of customer service when you have overpaid middle income hourly employees.

I personally like the idea of good dealers doing well, mediocre dealers doing okay, and bad dealers going broke and getting another job.

They'd have the same incentive we all do -- getting your ass fired if you aren't.

There are plenty of people who bust their asses for $35k/year. DMV be damned.

On this, we agree.

Can it be done once a day? Sure.
Can it be down as your average down? No.

Great point.

Let's cut everyone's wages to $10/hr.

After all, there are people starving in third world countries who will work for 2 cents a day.

Right?

Funny thing: I remember when somebody getting a good job and decent pay used to be a GOOD thing in America.

Amazing how the more I listen to "professional" card players, the more they sound like sweatshop owners and wall street CEO's. Cut everyone's pay, there's always someone hungrier, fire anyone who doesn't toe the line.

This, from the kids who supposedly dreamed of getting free of the perpetual-crap-wages system ...

Anyway, it's insanity. And I long ago quit working for people like you who think they're entitled to serfs and slaves. My players treat me great, and I don't work in places where the players behave like you.


q/q

Hyperbole is fun, right? WHEE!

Once again, it has to be said: The dealers who mock $16/hr as some sort of insult clearly don't understand how truly fortunate they are to have the jobs that they have -- considering that (based on the qualifications for poker dealer alone) they likely wouldn't have the opportunity to make $16/hr elsewhere if they lost their dealer job.

When dealers around here had to actually start claiming their tips, their wage dropped dramatically.

...guess how many of them left to do something other than deal poker?

For the record, I track my hands-per-down quite regularly.

Both limit and NL, 20+ is no problem.

(And, for the freeloaders out there: less than 15 is also no problem).


q/q

Ok, I'm to the point where I really don't want to waste any more time on you.

Advertise any position at any wage, you'll get thousands of applicants. That's what happens in a desperate economy with millions of unemployed people scraping to get by.

Welcome to America, circa 2011, the glorious land of opportunity, god help us all.

And you believe this justifies slashing wages, treating employees like disposable cogs, and denigrating true job skills to the ultimate vanishing point.

So what about union jobs? The backbone of the middle class for two generations?

What about professional jobs? The dreams of the middle class for its children for equally long?


There is no wage structure that cannot be gutted, no profession that cannot be disrespected, no job that cannot be replaced by an army of sweatshop workers on starvation wages.

And you know what?

It is utterly irrelevant.

At the end of the day, quality speaks for itself.

My customers know the difference between an assembly-line job-filler and a true committed lifelong professional.

It speaks for itself.

You, sir, refuse to acknowledge this difference, and you do so because you have an agenda in this argument that is hostile to labor -- and especially to he idea of good pay for good labor. But rest assured: you do not speak for my customers, my friends, my co-workers or even my bosses.

q/q

Not trying to be a pain, but I find this an interesting discussion and didn't realize it was going on ITT. I promise not to argue to long or too hard about my views, but...

I have a very different experience with people in *customer service* positions making median salaries (that lack commission and/or other compensation). I find there often is too little incentive to make customer satisfaction a #1 priority. There are exceptions, of course. Some individuals will always make the extra effort to insure happy customers. But many will not, which brings up my only other point...

Firing someone for lackluster performance is not always as easy as some people think it is. You can't just fire someone who shows up to work every day and on time, because their attitude or customer service skills are deemed slightly below average (or because they are getting fewer hands out per hour than the best dealers). Larger companies who employ many people with identical job titles and descriptions need to be careful when terminating people. They'll want to be able to definitively show that an employee is not competent or otherwise unwilling to perform the job they were hired to do in order to avoid discrimination and other claims. This is why (in my opinion) you see so many people in customer service related positions with below average performance. (the longer an employee is on the job, the harder it is to fire them without a very obvious reason).

I think it's different when you have an internal position making $35k/yr. Now your daily audience is different and need to impress co-workers and upper management with job performance and skills. Just my opinion. I won't argue further, because a). I could be wrong, and b). I think there is much we also agree on when it comes to dealers.

You work for a sweatshop owner who pays you minimum wage or less. Who tries to keep all his worker part time so he doesn't have to give benefits. Go complaint to the manager and see how long you stay in your job.

You can shine it off by saying that you "work for the players", but that is BS. You work for a boss that pays you as little as possible and tells you to make up the difference by going on Welfare. And "your players" are the taxpayers giving you the Welfare check.

Stop being cheap and tip anyone working in "service", whether it be a dealer or a waiter. Dealers have to deal with dbag degenerate poker players for a living...they deserve 3x the tips they receive.

I'd love to see you get 20+ hands per half hour routinely. I doubt it.

Well, 3x might be a bit much, and the job isn't all that hard, nor are the "dbag degenerate players" as plentiful as you think. But, yes, people should simply stop being cheap and understand that dealers are in the service industry, and take care of them accordingly.

Odd, I thought being the customer who pays for the service the service provider was the one who had to take care of the player

All tipping does is allow employers in the service industry to get away with taking as little care as possible of their employees, and leaving a substantial part of their wage to be decided on the whim of whomever the current customer is regardless of whether they actually did a good job or not.

You know what I meant. I suppose I could have phrased it "tip them fairly/generously" instead

This how I feel even as a dealer, I don't tip bad dealers.

I counted all my downs this weekend. 20 hands easy. You must live in detroit where all good dealers go to die.

You forget they are pros. The people who drive forklifts just pile in off the street with no more than a high school education (oh, wait...) and job related training (oh, wait again...) and fill the job until the next bum gets desperate (laugh out ****ing loud).

Not even going to bother with all the degreed professions that make less than that. Hope to God no social workers read this forum. Well, dealers should hope that anyway.

No, not even close. I guess people simply play at a way quicker pace where you're located. Most NL games around here people get between 14 and 17 hands per down. You're talking about averaging a minute and a half or less per hand.

He strongly argues that 6K doesn't equal 6k at least he just doubts you.

40+ is fast but so far from unheard of it's laughable to see a guy type to a guy he's never seen he doesn't believe him. I've always averaged mid 30's as a player not counting short tables (and have always gone over standard for guys who regularly top that and don't do anything else dumb, for lack of a better word). It's appreciated.

So in your world, the fact that this is a random person I've never seen before stating things that can't be proven or disprven on the spot makes him MORE believable? I'm just supposed to ignore my own position and observations and take his word for it?

I also never stated that "6k doesn't equal 6k". Spare me the ridiculous comments where you speak to me like I'm some urchin in the street. I stated that there are few people who would come anywhere near tipping that much to begin with, and that not tipping $6k worth of $1's at a time doesn't automatically mean you're going to have $6k more at the end of the year. I have yet to see any of the innumerable people in this thread who claim they don't tip state that their winrate is vastly improved because of it. If all these people are putting in full time hours and saving boatloads by not tipping, why aren't we hearing about it?