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Some places do 18% and call it a gratuity.

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So?????

I don't care if they call it an albino penquin. It's not an albino penquin, and it's not a gratuity. Words have meaning, and people can't talk to each other if each insists on using his own definition of the words he uses. Most of us here are speaking English. In that particular language, a tip or a gratuity is "...something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service...".

A "mandatory gratuity" is not a gratuity. That is an oxymoron. Or oxymoran. If it mandatory, it is a service charge or fee no matter what you call it.

The WSOP entry fees had some amount deducted for dealers, floor, etc., and the remainder was allocated to those in the money. If that amount was 3%, if you want to call it a tip, then each and every entrant tipped 3% of $10,000 before he sat at the table. But that isn't what happened, because no one voluntarily handed over $300 and said, this is for the dealers. Money was taken out of the entry fees, right off the top. Some was for the house, some was for the dealers and such. None of it was a tip.

After those deductions, the rest of the money went into the prize pool. Hachem's share of the prize pool was $7.5 million. Apparently, he did not give any of that to those who worked the WSOP. In English, that means that he did not tip. I think it means the same thing in Australian.