This has been addressed in other threads before but not this year that I can find.

What percentage are you toking when you cash in a WSOP event ? Do you consider the varying % levels of Dealer fees already being withheld ( in general 2% to 3% of the prize pool) when you make that "donation" ?

Is the level of dealer competency you experience in the event a factor ?

Generally in the 1-3% range from me. I dont really have a set amount, but its usually rounding down so I take home big bills only.

For Example: I cash a $400 buy in for 1130. I will generally tip the $30 and take home $1100 in clean big bills.


I threw $2500 in the box after binking $125k a few years ago. I have kind of wondered myself what the standard was for tipping after a big score.

A few years ago, when amateurs still won the Main, one of them won the Main. They were getting counsel from one of the former winners, can't remember who, that told him they were taking tip juice from the entries, and opined the winner shouldn't feel a need to tip any extra. So he didn't.

That was reported as Jerry Yang and Chris Ferguson as I recall.

I have no clue what I personally would do winning say $1 MM - I'm pretty consistent with making the total dealer rake be around 5% including the house cut so I'm always in the 2% to 3% range.

If the tip is included in the buy in, I don’t really see any reason why you’d have to add more (but of course you can if you want to). I probably wouldn’t but if it wasn’t included in every buy in then I would.

Staff fees are included in the buy in. Which I assume covers their base pay. ($X per 30 min down). Then there is tournament fees, which I assume covers the overhead required to run the event. Although, I could be mistaken and tournanent fees covers their base pay and the staff and dealer fees are considered "tips" but I would doubt it.

Looking at the Millionaire Maker, 3.3% of your $1500 entry ($50) goes to dealers and staff.

If you get knocked out after a few hrs, then you paid the dealers ~$10 bucks an hr.

If you min cash, (assuming it takes like 13-14hrs of play to cash), then you paid the dealers $3-4 per hr.

And that ratio gets worse and worse the deeper you go in a tourney.



Is anyone surprised that Turd Ferguson would tell another ME winner to not tip?

We're not the dealers' employers, so calcing an hourly is silly, imo.

I only cashed one this year on my early trip. Low buy-in, so huge rake. They always put the arm on you for a tip at the cash-out place. I told them I already tipped a lot at the buy-in.

If you win you tip according to your winnings.

The tip use to be $10 to $5000 , before they start taking out of the total prizepool . if you win $100 to $200 you tip $10 or if you win $1 mil you tip $5000.

Now it doesn’t matter everyone mandatorily have to tip , doesn’t matter if you win or not.

In recent Reunion tournament prize pool was $5448660 and mandatory tip wa $311352. Which came to 5.7% of the prize pool. I don’t think it would have came close to that % ratio in past years when tip wasn’t taken out from everyone .

So make your decision, if you think the tip should be more than 5.7 % tip extra.

In 2019 prize pool for main event was $80548600 and tip was $1542420 (over 1.5 million) but came to little less than 2% of the prize pool.

In my view tipping depends on personal experience now as mandatory tipping is already taken care of. Personally I will add something depending on my overall experience.

Let’s for arguments calculate that dealers tip is not deducted from prize pool . In that scenario Yang’s Jackpot would have been $8389952.00 . ($139952 more than he was awarded) . So actually when he received his Jackpot in reality he was paying a tip of $139952 (Jackpot-dealers tip deducted = $8250000.).

I am not against dealers getting more tips or anyone paying extra tips . I am just presenting facts and figures.

3-5% used to be standard before entry fees started including staffing portions. Usually entry fees cover more then that so unless your playing 5k+ buyins which typically tipped less like 1-3% the average staff cut is probably the same if not more in the new structure even if people don’t tip… up to each individual to decide for themselves though of course.

If it makes any difference, a floor man said they are paid $15 per down, and since there is a shortage, they are getting lots of downs. Not 100% sure he meant they are all making exactly $15 per down, or if he was saying even the new ones with no experience are getting that much (and implying that the seasoned ones could be getting paid more).

As examples - what is being withheld from the prize pool initially

SENIOR AND SUPER SENIOR $1,000 BUY IN 3.3% to staff
MIXED NO LIMIT /POT LIMIT $5,000 BUY IN 2.325 to staff
MAIN EVENT $10,000 buy in 2.025% to staff

Again understandably not everyone was giving tip previously . Min cash and player with negative ROI for the event ( in the case of multiple flights and multiple buy-ins). For example Reunion: players cashed in between place 639- 226 made between $1540-2940. Many of them had 4-5-6 rebuys!! They most probably don’t want to leave any more tip than mandatorily taken out.

Without a doubt tipping can logically be viewed only from a net Win perspective not just the Gross cash amount.

For clarification..

When they take 5% for tournament fees and then 3% for staff fees, how is that money being distributed?

Are the dealers paid $15/down from the tournament fees and then the staff fees are added on top of that, like a tip would be?

Or are the dealers paid from the staff fees?

If your rake goes toward paying the dealer a wage AND includes a 3% tip for staff then my views on tipping will change, but I have always assumed that the staff fees went toward paying the dealer's wages and then tips were added on top of that.

5% for tournament fees SHOULD be paying the dealers their base rate, because the dealers are a cost of holding the tournament. That doesn't mean they do it that way, but it's not my problem to pay the dealers' salaries. As far as I'm concerned "staff fees" are tips, because it's not on the players to pay salaries above and beyond the tournament fees.

LEDN rather than speculate I have submitted a formal question to the WSOP of exactly what you are asking. Does the hourly/down payment come from the 3.3% or does that come from the 7.7%. IE they are paid "hourly" from the entry fee and then compensated additionally from the 3.3% withheld for dealers and staff. If I get an answer I will post it. Note % used are from the Senior Event and other $1,000 buyins

This is an interesting topic. As a player, I have always HATED the tipping paradigm in poker tournaments. We all experience the same level of service, but its only a very small percentage of players who either feel obligated, or are pressured to tip. And in general, dealers hate the tipping paradigm in tournaments too since they can typically make a lot more dealing cash.

I feel like dealers ought to be able to make in the $25-$30/hr range. If the casino is paying them ~$8/hour in wages (typically), then its up to players to make up the remaining $17-22. That means players ought to be tipping $2-3/hr. If every player did this, then dealers would all make a decent wage, the tipping burden would be fairly distributed among players and no one would have any reason to complain, or feel pressure to go above and beyond. The question of "how much should I tip" would go away entirely and you might even find that good dealers will want to deal tournaments again.

but you're ignoring there are up to 9 other players paying that as well, he's not your personal dealer

we also don't get this mindset in table games

you come from a good place with positive intentions but it's mindsets like this that allow the casinos to underpay employees and then put the onus on clients to cover the difference or they are now the turd

everything should be included in the buyin if you feel like tipping on top of that then by all means but so long as people stopped feeling obligated to drop 4 figure tips then this disgusting practice of pushing payroll onto the players isn't going away

people here talking about dealers only making $8 an hour, yet McDonald's now has starting pay at $15 - we're enabling a terrible thing