No toke for you!

Let's talk about tipping. I don't know if this is old hash for some but I really want to hear how other pros handle it.


I am a pro poker play and I don't tip. I feel as if I'm already paying a more than reasonable amount to play poker and that tipping would constitute my paying twice. If I'm playing around 8 hours a day and collection is $12 dollars an hour then I'm paying around 100 bucks a day just to play poker. That is exorbitant.


And when I play a drop game which I do when I'm running bad, then it gets really sick. Four bucks on the button for 7-handed or more can be a bit over $20 dollars an hour so somewhere in the neighborhood of $160 for 8 hours.


As an aside,the really sick thing is that players are supposed to tip in a 1-2 game where the drop is still $3 dollars. This is unconscionable. These people just don't know what's happening to them. They are uneducated about poker and what they can expect to win and how the drop totally makes it impossible to win. While they have a choice to come to the casino and play, this is not the issue at all. They expect that they might have a chance to win when they don't. On top of that, they're throwing money at the dealers. Sick.


The argument I always hear is that dealers should be tipped just like a waitress gets a tip. I just don't see these two situations as analagous. I just don't mind paying 15% extra on a restaurant bill but tipping at a casino seems to me like tipping my landlord after paying rent. It just doesn't seem right.


The casino is making tons of money and I don't like the argument that I should compensate dealers that do a good job. They definitely should be. But not by me, by the casino. I feel like I have already paid more than enough for the services I'm getting.


I've had to develop a thick skin as I'm not exactly a dealer's best friend. Some give me evil eyes, some pitch cards at my hand, some have cussed at me, some have rooted for a card on the river that they know would kill my hand. For the more flagrant violations, I have gone to management who have always dealt with the problems well and have prevented any other abuse by the dealers. But I just don't think I'm the one they should be mad at. Why is the casino making all this money and paying them only minimum wage? They shouldn't be mad at me if they don't like their job- they should go on strike.


I'd like to hear tipping polices from other pros and why?

"I just don't mind paying 15% extra on a restaurant bill but tipping at a casino seems to me like tipping my landlord after paying rent."


Seems to me your landlord analogy applies equally to a restaurant or a casino. By your reasoning, you would never tip a waiter because, hey, you already payed for the food, right? How is the food any different than the rent?


My tipping policy is fairly rigid.


1) I tip on all pots with a profit of 2 small bets or more. Exception: If the dealer is getting stiffed by others, I tip on all pots.


2) I tip on all split pots that take up some time. On the borderline cases, I'll tip when the other guy doesn't.


3)I always tip one dollar in limit games. Even when I scoop a monster, the kind of pot that most would tip extra on, I get no ill will from the dealers at all because they know in advance what they are going to get, and because I'm always quick to defend them in sticky situations.


Tommy

I'll have to agree with Tommy. Tipping $1 in limit play is my standard (huge pot, small pot, doesn't really matter....occasionally I tip more for exceptional pots or huge streaks, but this is something I should fix in my game.) I think that most dealers at my usual cardroom are content with $1...since they rotate to the bigger games, they often get bigger tips from them and don't worry too much over what the smaller limit players tip. As long as they get something, they're satisfied. It's a happy medium between not tipping at all (and pissing dealers off) and tipping so much that it really affects your overall win rate.


One time I played with a dealer from somewhere...and he said that the rake structure where he deals called for a 50 cent split most of the time. As a result, they have to push a 50 cent piece to the winner, and the winner almost always pushes it back as a tip...and nothing more. He said it was so bad, he was probably going to move somewhere where "they don't allow silver on the tables." I'm sure that dealers in those cardrooms would really appreciate a $1 tip, and you can use the spare change for the waitresses or get chips back or whatever. I don't think it pays to have the dealer on your bad side, especially to the point where they're trying to foul your hand.

Joeflex,


One way of evaluating a behavior is looking at what would happen if everyone or did it. In Los Angeles dealers make minimum wage minus a mandatory $1 to $2 per hour for tip pool, which is distributed to floormen, chip-runners and board people (similar in concept that a cocktail waitress tipping a service bartender or a waitress tipping the bus-people). This is reality, a custom in most gambling halls, and won’t change.


No competent person would deal if most players behaved as you did. The collections would then have to be raised. But they are already too high and business and games would drop off which would hurt all of us. Under the current system (in Los Angeles) everyone pays most of the costs equally and customary tipping by the pot winners (in most limits usually the looser players anyway) gives the dealers a chance to make a half decent living.


By not tipping you are freeloading off those of us that do. This doesn’t mean that you must tip every dealer. Why not be selective? Reward good dealing with a tip. Stiff bad dealers. Protect all dealers from abuse. Never behave abusively. The atmosphere in the card rooms will improve and such a policy will allow the good ones to make a living and make the games better.


Of course you are in the minority so you can probably get away with what you are doing. But next time you discuss your “hourly rate”, subtract the money you should have tipped.


Regards,


Rick


PS Your arguments about the drop game are another issue. Don’t cloud things by using it to justify not tipping.

Joeflex,


If Casinos pay way more than minimum wage to the dealers and prohibit tipping to them, their quality will go down.


Generally speaking, the dealers in Vegas, Tunica and California (I assume as I never played in CA before) are better than the one in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. The difference is that while in the first group (NV, MI & CA), you can tip to the dealers and they can keep their own tip, but in the second group (IL, IN & MS), they share the tip with other dealers.


If dealers canÕt keep their own tip, or can't get tip at all, I think the quality will go down. My point is that tipping is a good deal as it keeps the quality high.


Or are you saying that dealers should get paid more than minimum wage + tip?


by Soh


p.s. Ésome of the poker dealers in IL are excellent...

I think your policies and beliefs on tipping are misguided. Dealers make their money mostly from tips. Dealers that are well compensated are more motivated to do a good job, which makes games run faster, and better. Fast, well run games allow us to make more money. As a non-tipper, you are likely to be disliked by not only dealers, but floorpeople as well. While they are likely to correctly enforce any CLEAR CUT CASES of rule violations by dealers, when you are in a borderline situation, don't be surprised if they rule against you. Players may very well dislike you as well, which may cause the quality of the game to seriously degrade. I happen to be rather outspoken when I see someone who is failing to tip. I think it is rude, cheap, distasteful, and hurts not only the game you are in, but the entirety of poker in general. On several occasions I have made certain non-tippers wish they had picked a different table than mine to play at. After all, casino employees have to take shit from customers, they really can't defend themselves very efficiently. However, I am not a casino employee, therefore I am not bound like they are.


If you are so worried about the cost of playing poker, taking it out on the dealers is not the best way to handle it. If you are paying 12$ an hour time charge, I hope you are playing at least middle limits. I believe the time charges in atlantic city are 6$/half hour for 15-30 limits. At these stakes, tipping $1 per pot is trivial. If you are playing in a 1-2 game with a 3$ dead drop on the button, you are certainly not playing winning poker, and you should know it, because this game is certainly completely unbeatable. Therefore the extra cost of tipping is really kind of a moot point. If you are playing in a low limit game, like 3-6, with a $4 dead drop on the button, the same thing applies. You can't possibly be playing a winning game, or if for some reason the game is in fact slightly beatable, you can't possibly be making much. Again, tipping here is kinda moot because you are already going bust fast anyway.


Now in situations where the game IS IN FACT BEATABLE, the cost of tipping should not cut into your profits enough for you to be worried about it. Tommy has a very good point in his post. He tips $1 per pot and doesn't jack it up with big pots. I pretty much follow this same policy, except occasionally I tip an extra buck for an especially good dealer, or on an especially large pot. Most of the time though, everyone is going to get a buck, they know it, and they are OK with it.


There are some instances where tipping is not needed. For instance, if I steal the blinds, I don't tip. No biggie. On tiny pots, say less than 10$ in a 3-6 game, I don't tip. Or if the dealer is especially horrible, makes a collosal blunder, or is rude, I might not tip. however, you really have to screw up pretty bad to piss me off to the point where I won't tip. This has only happened a few times.


Face it, the cost of playing poker is not suddenly going to be lowered by the casino you are playing in. With the exhorbanant prices you mentioned, you must play near LA. The cost of poker there is relatively prohibitive to the good player making any profit. This is perhaps the fact you should face, rather than take it out on dealers. The casino is also not going to all of a sudden raise the dealers' salaries to the point where they would make the same amount of money without tips. Another fact. For dealers to do a good job, they need to make good money. This will only happen if there is tipping. If the players were to all stop tipping, the quality of dealers would go so far down as to make the game of poker unplayable under most circumstances. Tipping is between you and the dealers, not you and the casino, and not the dealers and the casino. You hurt the game, and yourself, when you don't tip. Excessive tipping is not necessary. Just a reasonable tip is all that is needed to fairly compensate poker dealers.


Dave in Cali

I tip $1 per hand won. Big pot or small pot. I don't tip when I steal the antes in stud or Blinds in HoldEm.


I will not tip the dealer a 2nd time during the current time in the box if he/she does not say thank you after the first toke.


John

I don't think that tipping a dealer makes his service to a player any better. If his service gets worse when you don't tip, he'll be fired and there will always be somebody there to take his place.


At the same time, if you are a professional poker player you'd like to make as much money as possible. When players don't tip, other players get mad. When players get mad, they may play better against you. They also tend act obnoxious...some dealers do as well. Very quickly, poker ceases to fun. The "fun" players, who you want to play against, leave the table to find a place with less hostility. Also, since the poker table is your workplace, I would imagine you'd be willing to pay a dollar or so a hand to make your table a more pleasant place to work.


Tipping a dealer, in theory, seems rediculous to me as well. However, I think you'd have a better day at work, and make more money in the long run, if you tipped.

At my reguler game I always tip $1. When I go on a 'road trip' where no one knows me I tip $.50. This is: A.> To falsely advertise that I am used to a smaller game. B.> Because nobody knows me,I won't be there long,so I don't care if they think I'm cheap.

How do others feel about dealers that do not acknowledge, yet alone say "Thank you" for a toke. I have noticed a couple of dealers at the Trop-AC that do not acknowledge a player at tip time nor do they say thank you to the table when they leave.