tipping at the WSOP

[whiskeytown]

ok - first off, I am not a troll - and both Photoc and Al Capone will probably vouch that I'm as generous as anyone at the poker table with tipping

but this article by Amy Calistri really caught me off guard - she catches a lot of the underground gossip that goes on (like WPT pro's who are broke) - here's what she had to write -

[ QUOTE ]
There are a lot of people on the internet whining about players who allegedly "didn’t" tip or "under-tipped" during the WSOP. I would like to whine about the people who are whining. First and foremost, the players are upchucking their own bucks to play. For the WSOP, Harrah's took between 6% and 10% out of the prize pools for house juice and tournament and dealer compensation. Approximately 90% of the players either lost money playing a WSOP event or barely scored more than minimum wage for their time and effort. After it was all said and done, dealers made between $30/hr to $40/hr for their time. I realize that the dealers and tournament staff worked hard and long hours. And I know they put up with a lot of [censored] and they earned every penny. But players incurred all the risk. Players incurred all the cost. You’re going to put them down for not laying out more money? Give me a break. And for the tournament staff and dealers that have been bitching and publicly outing "non-tippers," you're wrong and you're only hurting yourselves. What a player tips, considering that they are taking all the risk, footing their own prize pool, and already pay a mandatory tip, is their own friggin business.

If you stop whining, I will.



[/ QUOTE ]

In the past, my premise for tipping is that dealers are making mininum wage, (or in NYC - NO WAGE) - and therefore, tips supplement their income so the job is good -

but in this case - with that much money taken out already, and with the wages they're making....is it something I should feel bad about if I'm not inclined to dump 10 percent of my winnings into an additional fund - sheeeit. - $30-40 an hour is better then what I used to make till about a yr ago -

remember - I'm not a troll, and I'm not saying no tipping - far from it - (esp. for good dealers - a little less often for the incompetant ones) - but to read about that kind of toke and then people griping about not getting more....that is a bit rough, even for me...but then this is probably just a WSOP issue -

RB

[98romaine]

I think 10% is a bit excessive to expect, but 3-4% is pretty standard when someone makes it deep into the money in one of these things.

[Kevmath]

Here's a post from RGP from someone who said they've dealt the past two WSOP's, and made about $35/hour, $27/hour after expenses.

[whiskeytown]

If I knew they were making that kind of money, I'd be much more likely to keep a few 5's by my stack and just give each dealer I liked one after it's done (if that's allowed) -

that way I'm tipping whether I'm winning or losing, and I'm not hitting up the wankers who can't deal or call the floor for even the slightest slip of the F'word.

RB

[MarkD]

Although never having placed high in a big tournament like this I would feel no obligation to tip the dealers anything. They have already been tipped, by myself, and every other person who played the tournament. Making $30/hr is good money. It's more that I make as an engineer and no one tips me. To me, tipping represents a thank you for a job well done to somebody who performs a service and does not get paid well enough for that service. In this case the dealers have been more than fairly compensated for their services because they have already been fairly tipped.

This seems rather simple and trivial... and there was about a 100 page post on this no more than a month ago in this forum.

[dogmeat]

I've always toked at the end of tournaments. I have my own system, and don't care what the dealers think. I deduct my buyin/buyins from my payout and tip 5% - and I've been doing this for years. However, at this year's WSOP, I refused to tip a dime. Now the fact is,I didn't cash in any of the regular events, but I had already decided I wouldnt tip if I cashed. What Harrah's took out for the staff/dealers/profit was plenty. Cash games were different, standard tips there.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[shaniac]

I think that additional tips at the WSOP went to the floor staff, since the dealers were already taken care of. Or that's what I heard.

My two cents on tipping:

After the one FT I made at WSOP 2005, I did tip about 1% of my gross win. I would probably tip that amount on any tournament cash, even if 3% was already withheld for staff.

I recently took 5th place at a Legends tournament at the Bike, where nothing was withheld from the prizepool for the dealers, and tipped around 4% of my net win.

Maybe it's a radical philosophy on tips, but I don't loose any sleep over overtipping. It seems that people are bothered by the fact that a poker dealer might be making "too much money" or some similar notion. That doesn't phase me. If the staff was professional, I have no problem at all parting with a small chunk of my win as a gesture. I understand how this can effect my ROI but I don't really care. There's way worse crap that I've done with my money. I've worked service industry jobs before, and when it comes to tips, I don't mind giving action when I'm getting action.

[Phill S]

Here in the UK we dont tip nearly as much as you do in america.

As a general rule though i tip when out at restaurants (note by law we cant tip in casinos anyway). Generally it helps them to give good curtious fast service, or if its busy and the waitress has clearly had a shitty day i dont mind leaving a bit more.

If they have a service charge i dont tip beyond this. Never. Ive considered asking for this to be deducted once before due to shitty service but as a group we decided not to make a scene (british mentality hard at work).

This would extend to poker if the situation ever arose. If you want to keep 3% for staff, have 3%; dont expect more. And if this isnt good enough and dealers get crap pay, well they knew the terms when they took the job.

Phill