I'm not sure what wage the casino pays the dealer has to do with it. My casino doesn't have a big sign that says what the dealers make.

In a restaurant you pay for meals and tip for service.
In casinos you pay for service and tip for service.

Because of that, dealers are much more akin to strippers and barbers - in that you're both purchasing and tipping on the service - but in those professions you're generally tipping on the qualityof service, and the tip generally means something in the service that you get.

Tips to dealers are just this... ...tax... ...on playing poker. They can't really do anything extra for you. At least the stripper can hustle a little better in her dance.

Poker dealers, and anyone else, is worthy of getting paid whatever the market will bear for their position.

So what do you tip the cab driver for?

Never really understood tipping taxi drivers and not train engineers, bus drivers and pilots aren't they doing the same type job? About the only difference is amount of job training and the amount of money the employer is paying. But if you are flying on "puddle jumpers" the pilot is making a fraction of what regular pilots make so shouldn't tip them to help make up the difference?

On a similar note about employers paying more so customers do not have to pay the salaries, Publix is a large grocery chain in Florida and for decades now they have signs posted that say, No tipping(the people that help put your groceries in your car).

They obviously pay the baggers a bit more so that customers are not obligated to tip.

Much like the stripper and the barber, the taxi driver's tip can also include something based on performance.

...but we're back to where we started. Some jobs are tipped and some aren't, despite them being quite similar.

Poker dealers are much more like bus drivers than taxi drivers (group service versus one-on-one service), and we don't tip them [very often].

I dont think its nitty.

No good comes from it and its simply against house policy( that i have ever known).

Dealers are not supposed to discuss what they make, or dont make. Dealers shouldnt solicit tips and they certainly shouldn't complain about tips to customers.

1) Tipping properly hurts my 1/2nl winrate

2) I dont want to tip

3) Wait...now I feel kinda bad about not tipping

4) Let me rack my brain and see if I can come up with some reasons why poker dealers dont deserve tips

5) Ahhh...Now I feel better about not tipping

-MENTAL GYMNASTICS-

Once again, the myth that to take issue with the culture makes us stiffs. Nobody's trying to make themselves feel better. The "you're cheap!" side wants to pretend that the money doesn't matter to the players (it does), and that anyone who so much as finds fault with the culture is a cheapskate (we're not).

Tipping service staff who aren't allowed to treat you any differently based on your tips just because their job won the tip lottery is stupid.

....but most of us participate in the silly custom regardless.

Much like businessmen wearing neckties. We just do it.

Wow dude, you are getting hosed... The dealers up here in Ontario (union) make about $16 an hour I believe (I'll verify that and update my post).

Sounds like I'd find another card room to deal in.

No wonder why this is so important to you.

Do they get tipped as well?

He said its in Canada. I doubt it, lol.

Lovely. I'm sure the rules say they aren't. This doesn't mean that your time at the table should consist of ignoring enjoying yourself/ ignoring playing to win, just so you can nit it up by pestering floor managers about silly rules violations? I honestly think it'd be beyond nitty and almost pathetic to call the floor and cry about a dealer commenting on tip tendencies. Find better things to worry about.

Perfectly stated. The entire thing about the tipping model and the legitimacy of the pay scale on the service industry and all that is just total nonsense. People want the money for themselves and want to justify not giving it to someone else. That's it and that's all. People who don't tip or don't like tipping would be respected a lot more in this thread if they just grew balls and said this instead of the absurd rants about being morally against the current United States tipping system.

Take a job at minimum wage.
Accept working 4 days a week.
Accept only being able to be in a position to be tipped 5 hrs a shift.
Collect $5 for the House and shove George the remaining $13 from the pot. $9 of which was his.
Mutter under your breath when George does not tip.

______________________________

I am also wondering, if your games are getting overrun by non-tippers, why do you guys stay in the job?

I'm sorry, what's my perspective on this again?

You keep saying, over and over, that we all just need to come out of the cheapskate closet or something and admit we're cheap -- but that has nothing to do with it.

I'm a fair tipper. Nothing extravagant. Nothing that'll get me remembered. Every once in a while a nice "thank you" from the staff after a big party or when service was wonderful, but 99% of the time I blend into the tipping woodwork.

...and yet I still don't like the system, and am interested in discussing it; and were it ever in my power to implement a different system, I'd do it.

So, seriously, stop calling us all out as closeted cheapskates.

Dealing, presumably, is like sex.

Even a bad dealing gig beats working a different job.

for those who have stated "you pay for the service, then you tip for the service"

wrong. you pay for the electricity to power the lights, shufflers, bravo system to maintain your petty little "points" that you care so much about, the free alcohol, the security cameras and personnel to protect your money, the ability to take money from those laundering for you, free advertisement and publicity for your business (you don't put up billboards and other forms of marketing to bring the fish to your business do you?) the cheques, the new felt, the chairs, anything and everything you might get comped (funny how greedy players are about their comps when they don't get them) and everything else in the mix to run a poker room.

you tip the dealer for sending the cards to you and allowing you to take that extra $20/hr because without them and without someone sitting in the box all of that stuff above does not matter.

The room i work in has a $4 max rake, except time games which can be 7/half(5/10nl and 75-150 stud) or 10/half (10/25nl). If you would rather pay the house to pay me i'm sure they would gladly raise the rake to $6 or $7 max but then you would all complain about the rake now wouldn't you.

So we do or don't both pay for and tip on the service? That's wrong? If I don't leave your establishment with something tangible in my pocket, I'm getting A SERVICE. That SERVICE includes the comfy chairs.

Next you'll tell me that a barber isn't providing a service because my haircut bill goes to paying for the red and white pole...

Also note that round these parts we don't get much (if anything) in the way of comps, and we don't get free drinks. WE don't get advertising and publicity - the casino does. The chairs are nice though, I'll give you that.

Bee tee dub, if anyone wants to pay me $12/hr in rake, I'll gladly return you $1/hr in comps which are only valid for my other goods and services.

Locally, zero comps. Nada.

$5 drop per hand.
Of which, $0.75 goes to the City.
$0.25 goes to the dealer.
$2.50 or so is profit.

Unpossible! Having some of the dealer pay be a factor of how many hands/hour they deal and it coming out of the rake is sheer insanity.

I understand, of course, that this would only generate $7.50/hr for them; but you're nuts for even pretending that dealers could be paid from the rake without the casino going bankrupt.

Your casino is bankrupt, right?

Several other people are saying the same thing. They and I are saying it for one reason - in general it's clearly true. For you personally? Who knows. You keep insisting it isn't, but I'd be right way more often than I'd be wrong if I said this about every anti-tipping poster in this thread. I'm sorry, but it's just ridiculous for people to ask everyone to believe that they're as passionate as they are about not tipping simply because of some inner moral outrage over how tipping is conducted in the US. I highly doubt people sit around at the table thinking about this as much as they claim on here. I'd say it's a lot more likely that they simply don't like parting with money they feel is theirs.

Fair question. I'd like to see people expand on this, dealers especially, to get a consensus on just how many non-tippers there are. As a player I've got to say I don't remember seeing more than a handful of people in my entire poker life who were complete non-tippers in raked games. There are more people in this thread claiming to never tip than I've seen total. The vast majority of people have no problem with tipping so dealers really shouldn't complain.

I was told by a friend who was a dealer that with shared tokes (they split with pit games), that they make about $23-26 an hour, so I'd say yes.

Ahhh, I see. Peer pressure and emotional extortion. Persuasive indeed.


We still have 2 basic premises that are being ignored.

1) Player wants to keep his own money. vs. Dealer wants the player's money. Putting both of those together, explain why greedy applies to one and not the other.


2) The players are already paying the house top dollar ($120-$200 per hour). The house cuts the dealer in for the absolute minimum that they're legally required to. If you want to sling accusations of "cheap" or "greedy" the real villain is the guy signing your paycheck. But they've succeeded in brilliantly misdirecting you.



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If people feel that the current tipping tradition is illogical in places, such as with poker dealers,then they often will try to convince others.
Cheap people would usually not bother posting.

I believe that poker dealers tips grants them a wage that is undeserved by the job and the job requirements. I have stated so. Out of fear of bad decisions, I tip poker dealers, less than average but close to average

I also feel that some other occupations are under paid. Garbage men are a very important part of our society and they are doing a difficult, dangerous, disgusting, smelly job in all weather conditions. I tip them well at Christmas time. I tip them when I leave the occasional large amount on the curb. I encourage others to do the same.

In a nut shell, I am posting this because of my moral outrage over how tipping is done in the US. If I just wanted to stiff dealers, I would do so and I would not bother to post.

PS: The money I tip is my money, I do not just feel it is mine