Dealer Tipping @ foxwoods

[bwana devil]

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I almost never tip at Foxwoods and nobody ever says anything.

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You may want to revisit this concept. Sounds extremely cheap to me. I am not a dealer nor have I ever worked for tips as a job.

[toots]

Well, $1 chips often appear anyway.

I mean, the pot's raked for some odd dollar value, so the dealer's already breaking down red chips as part of doing her job. You win the pot, and you'll probably find at least one $1 chip in it.

Secondly, I've never seen a dealer object to the notion of breaking a chip when there's a toke in it for them. At yellow chip tables, the convention seems to be to toss a $2 chip at the dealer and say "one for you/one for me."

[CJC]

Hello,

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You are simply trying to justify being a cheapskate.

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Do you really care if other players tip or not? Quite honestly if you are paying attention as to 1)IF a player tips at all 2)The amount they tip............. says to me that you aren't paying attention to your game..

I play at Foxwoods all the time.. and I can tell you exactly how much I have tipped.. in TOTAL.. in the last 6 months.. That total is $1.. Yup.. $1.. That was when a dealer actually pushed me close to a $1000 pot in a 10-20 Stud game..

Now if you want to call me a cheapskate too.. Fine.. I could give a crap.. Just remember that while you are tipping all your money away.. I am using that same money to pay for, shall we say some of the finer things in life..

The Dealers in Foxwoods, are the single worst dealers in the country.. and I have played most everywhere there is at some point in time. Why should I tip them? Give me one reason. The biggest reason they are the worst dealers IS BECAUSE of Foxwoods tipping system. When will management at the worlds largest casino ever freakin realize that if Dealers kept their OWN tips.. things would improve EXPONENTIALLY..

Why?

1) If the dealers kept their own tips... they might actually deal more than 7 hands every 1/2 hour
2) If the dealers kept their own tips... they might actually develop a personality and make the games more enjoyable..
3) If the dealers kept their own tips... they might actually learn how to do their freakin jobs.. In other words... Less F*CK UPS....
4) Most importantly.. and this refers back to number 1.. If the dealers dealt more hands.. THEY would make more money AND the Casino would too... So Kathy.. are you listening???????

Basically it boils down to this.. Give an employee an INCENTIVE to do their job better.. and they will.. Employer makes more money.. so does Employee...



You make mention in your post about waiters and waitressess working for tips.. Well tipping is for SERVICE.. and usually you tip for GOOD service... How often do you receive good service from a poker dealer at Foxwoods?

Not to mention that if you lose a pot.. the dealer is the first one to say "I just shuffle the cards and hand them out.. Not my fault"... Well they do the same damn thing when they deal a winning hand...

Now I have no problems tipping dealers.. Providing that 1) they keep their own tips 2) They are an excellent dealer.. when I was living out in AZ I used to tip the dealers at Casino AZ quite frequently.. ( By the way.. I still believe they have the best dealers in the country ) But until I see a major change in the Foxwoods system.. the dealers are just going to have to get paid by the tourists..

CJ

[CJC]

Hello,

I just wrote what seems like a thesis above.. but Do you really care what other people do as far as tipping? I mean seriously.. Go to the casino to play poker.. thats where your attention should lie..

CJ

[Rams_Law]

This topic comes up every so often. I tip $1 almost every pot at 4/8 (when was the last time you didn't get post flop action at a FW 4/8 table?). Yes, dealer quality is, umm, variable. There is also little logic in tying a tip to a win, beyond the mere fact that everyone seems to have their hand out when you come into money, which I kind of resent (Prime example of this, tipping the person who hand pays a slot win - should you also tip the machine for 499 coins if you tip the person who pays you 500 units by hand? Just an example, I don't play slots.).

I also understand dealers make their money off tips, which is why I regularly tip. Yes, it could be better if they didn't pool, or at least didn't pool with the pits.

What I'd like to see is a system that pays the dealers, but still rewards and encourages better performance. I'd though about just tipping $2 a down, but there is little incentive in that. Also do you do it at the beginning of the down? Maybe. The problem with waiting till the end is the scornful looks when the dealer pushes you a pot and you don't tip.

What about tipping $1 on your button? Faster play === more $$$. Still gives incentive to the dealer, and they control their own destiny. And 15-20 hands per down == $30-40 per hour. Any dealer want to stand up and say they're unwuilling to work for $40/hr.? No dealer gets to cry poverty in response without posting a copy of their time & pay stub.

[scrub]

(1)Dealers get payed less than minimum wage before tips. If nobody tipped, then the rake would be higher and the dealers would make just about what they make now but as an hourly wage. When you don't tip, you're counting on other players to pay your share of the costs associated with getting to play poker in a cardroom. It's up to you whether you feel comfortable with that.

(2) Many Foxwoods deales are horrendous. Some of them are breakin dealers who are just clueless, and the tipping system has nothing to do with it. There's just too much demand for dealers and too few people who want to deal. Some of the dealers who have been there the longest are the worst, though, and I think the tipping system has a lot to do with it. I've spoken to the floor about specific dealers this summer with mixed results. I've gotten breakin dealers moved out of red chip NL and limit table rotations, but haven't had a lot of success getting old bitter dealers to shut up in the box and deal the cards without talking to railbirds or coaching the fish on how poorly they play.

(3) I played at the Borgata this weekend, and their 2/5 NL game moves even slower than the FW 5/5 game does. The dealers at the Borgata keep their tips, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I think a lot of the slowness in games these days is that players folding undercards to the board on the turn seem to think they're doing Shakespeare in the park and not paying time to play poker, and it's hard for a dealer counting on tips to be assertive enough to speed people up.

(4) I used to tip a buck at the beginning of a down and another at the end if the dealer got 14 hands out, but not tip for pots. I always seemed to run terrible when I did it, though, or I would forget that I was doing it when I won a pot and end up tipping twice as much as usual. When a new dealer rushing to get the 14 hands out near his push made a gigantic mistake and cost a guy an $800 pot by pushing it prematurely, I stopped doing it...

scrub

[KingFourOff]

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What about tipping $1 on your button? Faster play === more $$$. Still gives incentive to the dealer, and they control their own destiny.

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Interesting. I like to have the table image of "the eccentric" so whenever I sit down or a new dealer shows up, I let them know that if they deal me King Four, win or lose, they get a tip at the end of the hand. (I hold to this, don't want to damage my Karma.) I hadn't thought of the fact that it provides an incentive for faster play. Hehe... fringe benefit. I hadn't noticed any play speed issues at my Foxwoods tables.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying I've discovered a brilliant strategy with this particular thing, but I just hadn't thought that being and overtly advertising the idea that you are a healthy tipper would increase play speed.

[midas]

This subject has always amazed me and everyone I have ever met who does not tip has some serious mental issues above and beyond the world of poker.

I tip $1 on every pot I drag and $3-$5 on any monster pots. I use this same policy at FW (pooling), AC, Vegas or LA casinos that I have played this year. Also, the quality of the FW dealers seemed on par with every casino I played on my LV trip last month even though the LV dealers kept their tips.

BTW, if more people don't tip dealers, the casino still needs to pay them a decent wage which means the rake increases for everyone.

BC guy - you need to get to one of those churches on campus more often!!

[chson]

I tip halves on every pot I win.

[StevieG]

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What about tipping $1 on your button? Faster play === more $$$. Still gives incentive to the dealer, and they control their own destiny.

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The problem is that good dealing is more subjective than that. For the most part, more hands per hour is a good thing and a fine reason to tip.

But let's say we have a table with a couple of rookie players who act slowly. If the dealer's incentive is based purely on speed, they are likely to press these players and make them uncomfortable.

What I want in that situation is a dealer that puts them at ease, offers patient explanation of what the bet is to them and what their options are, etc.