I've been out of the live MTT scene for awhile and noticed that most tourney series now charge around 4-6% in "staffing fees" as part of the ever-creeping up juice, on top of a flat ~10% entry fee.

For example, a $570 is 500+50+20 when it used to be 500+60, or a $350 is now 300+30+20 when it used to be 300+40.

In the $300-$1k level buyins, is there a consensus of how big a staffing fee is justifiable before it starts eating into an otherwise traditionally winning MTT player's profits (if you were to otherwise tip a flat 2% after cashing)? In other words is tipping small in dollars every time better than tipping smaller in percentage the minority of occasions we cash? And how does anyone not tip extra when they bink a huge cash?

There's probably some math to this if we can assume a few things. From my own limited stats of about 500 tournaments, my ITM is about 18% and my ROI seems absurdly high at about 70%. (It would still be 46% if it weren't for one big cash.)

I usually play fairly large field tournaments and obv running good so sample size is likely an issue. And this is all coming off the worst dry spell of my career: 23 whiffs when I should expect to cash one time in 5-6. This beats my previous dry spell record of 19 in 2009 and 17 in 2012, but I digress.

So in reality maybe we can say I'm around 50% ROI long term. Are these numbers enough to calculate how much rake is justified?

What do you do when you encounter a forced tip at a restaurant? We're looking at the same thing here, so adjust accordingly.

In Florida ...

You used to do an optional add-on at the table. The money went to the dealer's tip pool. The state has decided that it wants to tax the dealers on this add-on twice. Once as revenue, then again when they get paid as income.

Due to this, we've been forced to include the add-on into the entry fee at the window while the courts figure out how legal it is for the state to be double taxing the dealers.

Thanks for the explanation, Uniden. Are you a manager at The Isle? I'm all for dealers getting paid fairly for the work that they do. I never liked the tipping culture, but I understand why it's there.

Now that you've implemented the prepaid staff charge, are people still tipping when they cash? If it's dropped, by how much? Are the people who come in 1st place generally still expected to tip extra? What if they don't? Are they perceived as cheap nits?

Thanks again for the info.