Tipping CONTAINMENT thread.
Because it's the most contentious topic discussed in the B&M Forum, a containment thread for tipping is necessary to pre
Not sure about "most", but many do have bad attitudes, perform their job poorly/carelessly, or just don't know much/enough despite it being their job. For checkraisdraw's situation, it's an unfortunate one, and he has no real "fix" from his end, since the problem lies elsewhere from them.
The breakroom bitching thing is common. Dealers will always find something to bitch about. The degree in this instance is pretty ridiculous. Usually it's not only the tip amounts on its own, but I have seen that. As for a dealer getting salty from not getting tipped (enough), I've seen it with a veteran coworker, but basically only when he ships a good amount of pots in a down to a total hard stiff. I don't really observe dealers closely too often whether I'm at work or playing though.
Dealers just misunderstand where their money really comes from in the long run. Having some big tipping whale (or dealer) on your table is a nice thing, but it's functionally a limited time offer. The average hours they're playing over whatever period will be eclipsed by the "dollar a hand" regulars/pros that are all over the room. It can also explain why many dealers play poker badly; they see some lunatic run up a stack during their down and think that that's the way to play.
How much were other players tipping?
Hard to imagine them getting upset with you if others tipped less.
Your posts are really making me think that most dealers are a-holes who don't deserve to be tipped at all.
Well I don’t want you to get that impression.
Maybe I should be a little more cautious and say that the people I worked with had a problem with it. There’s a reason I left though, the workplace was toxic in general and I’m better off for it.
I’ve been to other casinos where people were a lot nicer.
And in the games I played it’s a typical 20/40 so probably like 1-3 dollars per pot. You might get the occasional whale tipping more but it wasn’t usual.
Tipping is 100% optional and anyone shouldn't be judged or feel pressured to do it. And it shouldn't have consequences on how professional the worker is.Is it good to tip? Yes, of course.Is it good to not tip? Yes, of course.I'm sure that many people won't agree with me. And I just genuinely ask, (I'm just interested on the answers) for you which are the parameters to tip or no
While I agree with you in theory about anyone ever feeling pressure to tip and the quality of service should never depend upon the level of the tip, I think that logic breaks down in reality. At least in the U.S.
In the U.S., dealers make a substantial amount of their income from tips (and this is expected as normal). If more and more players thought like you, dealers are going to make far less money. Dealers making less money means a lower quality of dealer on average. It is simple economics.
Just remember this the next time you think about complaining about dealer quality.
If anything, the last decade of the WSOP has shown that there is a strong correlation between what a dealer can earn versus dealer quality. For a while the WSOP was squeezing the amount that dealers earned per tournament down. As a result they got the bottom of the barrel dealers. Many of the dealers were just out of dealer school with minimum experience. It got to the point where it became a talking point for almost everyone who played at the WSOP. It was bad.
They have since improved the pay, and dealer quality has improved, but the legacy remains.
Why would I tip when 80% plus of all dealers
NEVER say thank you! They just pick up a dollar or two and put it in their box.
Fine with me as I save a great deal of money not tipping these dealers.
Why would I tip when 80% plus of all dealers
NEVER say thank you! They just pick up a dollar or two and put it in their box.
Fine with me as I save a great deal of money not tipping these dealers.
Where I play, 90% of the time dealers do say thanks. Where are you playing?
when i got back to the united states i used to tell dealers - please stop saying thank you it's unnecessary
this was usually ignored to my great annoyance
then one day one dealer doesn't respond with the "sorry i'll always say thank you" to the real answer of, "even if you and i both agree on that, others who don't know about this arrangement will see and then think i'm ungrateful and not tip me"
made perfect sense that i'd be costing them dollars from others so i stopped asking after that
I had a player scream at me for not thanking him for a tip. I'm 99.9% sure I did because I always do, and apologized, but he continued on telling me how he'll never tip me again because of it.
Some people are just bitter and looking for an excuse to be awful.
I had a player scream at me for not thanking him for a tip. I'm 99.9% sure I did because I always do, and apologized, but he continued on telling me how he'll never tip me again because of it.
Some people are just bitter and looking for an excuse to be awful.
Yep. I always thank a player for a tip. It is automatic. I will admit I do it without thinking.
One time I had a player call me out on it. He said I wasn't really thankful because I said it automatically without thinking. I responded by saying that it is true, it was automatic. I do say thank you without thinking. However that doesn't mean it wasn't genuine. I am thankful for any tip I get. Saying so 15-20 times a down can be so repetitive that it can be automatic, but that doesn't not mean it is not genuine.
I am pretty sure he called me out on this as a joke, maybe to get other players to understand dealers work for tips, so I am appreciative, but itwas odd.
One thing I have noticed has helped me recently has been personalizing the thank you by including the players name.
If the player is a reg, they have a card, look at and remember their name in Bravo. Then when they tip you, say "Thank you Joe".
For a long time I avoided doing this simply because I personally didn't like it. I have always have been an introvert and found a person I barely know using my name to be a false signal that they are trying to get a facade of intimacy that wasn't there.
I have come to realize that I am in the minority though. Most people like being addressed in a personalized manner.
While I agree with you in theory about anyone ever feeling pressure to tip and the quality of service should never depend upon the level of the tip, I think that logic breaks down in reality. At least in the U.S.In the U.S., dealers make a substantial amount of their income from tips (and this is expected as normal). If more and more players thought like you, dealers are going
Our biggest difference here is the tipping culture. In U.S. the tipping culture is completely opposite to the European tipping culture (I was raised in Spain).
In Spain, you can´t even tip to a specific dealer, it's not legal. The tip goes into a piggy bank which is distributed among all the casino workers at the end of the week/month.
Which doesn't make sense for me. If I want to tip you why I just can't? But for me neither makes sense that the customer is part of the equation about how much a dealer earns.
The formula that makes most sense is that "the businessman pays the worker and charges the customer". Instead of being the customer who pays the businessman (rake) plus the worker (tips)
One thing I have noticed has helped me recently has been personalizing the thank you by including the players name.If the player is a reg, they have a card, look at and remember their name in Bravo. Then when they tip you, say "Thank you Joe".For a long time I avoided doing this simply because I personally didn't like it. I have always have been an introvert and found a person
a dealer knowing my name and i knowing a little about them or vice versa is the magic lube that get my tips up to standard rates of the table rather than $1 flat
i'm aware that they could just be remembering me for that reason and/or faking it and using bravo but either way it works
Our biggest difference here is the tipping culture. In U.S. the tipping culture is completely opposite to the European tipping culture (I was raised in Spain). In Spain, you can´t even tip to a specific dealer, it's not legal. The tip goes into a piggy bank which is distributed among all the casino workers at the end of the week/month. Which doesn't make sense for me. If I want
I 100$ agree. However that culture extends in other ways. In general, most European games are raked way higher and as a result most European dealers are paid more base pay before tips.
I think tipping really warps a lot of the economics of poker in bad ways, but unfortunately I do not have power to change the status quo.
Some people are just bitter cranks. They're lashing out because they lost the hand and because your reasonable tipping shines a light on how cheap they are.
$1 was the standard 15 years ago, with inflation that would be $1.50 today. The dealers appreciate those who give more.
What is etiquette concerning tipping? I read online the standard tip is $1. I tip between $1 and $10, usually $1 or $2. I notice most players tip much more.Tonight of course someone did something that irritated me. Another player criticized my tipping, saying "give the pot fo the good tipper" after folding a hand. Then he added "Don't spend all his money in one place."So first,
you are an insanely good tipper, i would never in a million years tip $10 and do $1 on any pot that sees a flop and that's it
some people are just cranky and it's easy to attack people as bad tippers because nobody can ever argue against it and not look like a d-bag
Their might be some correlation but likely not that much overall. Let's say half the people in every poker room across the entire USA quit tipping overnight. The casino would probably just add a $1 rake per hand and increase dealer base wages considerably before everyone quit.
But yeah if it happened in only one specific room then yes all the good dealers would leave and deal elsewhere and you'd be stuck with the worst of the worst.
Meanwhile if everyone in the usa increased their tipping by 50% overnight you'd probably get a modest uptick in dealer quality over a long period of time but it still wouldn't be that significant. A lot of the smartest, most efficient people still aren't going to consider poker dealing as a career.
The real world WSOP results disagree with you. There were experienced dealers who would go almost anywhere else because the WSOP was squeezing their pay, but when the WSOP stopped, the experienced dealers quickly came back.
Meanwhile if everyone in the usa increased their tipping by 50% overnight you'd probably get a modest uptick in dealer quality over a long period of time but it still wouldn't be that significant. A lot of the smartest, most efficient people still aren't going to consider poker dealing as a career.
I think you are underestimating the problem. You don't need the smartest, most efficient. Sure, that helps and makes for a better game, but the difference is isn't between the the smartest most efficient and the other, it is between the worst and the semi competent.
It is the 80/20 rule. A casino doesn't need the best dealers, it just needs to have not bad dealers.
Right now there is a ton of options for a "not bad" dealer so they can afford to be picky about how much they make. They will avoid the crap jobs.
Sure if the economy tanks and unemployment hits double digits, then dealer quality will go way up for all games, but we are not there yet.
The real world WSOP results disagree with you. There were experienced dealers who would go almost anywhere else because the WSOP was squeezing their pay, but when the WSOP stopped, the experienced dealers quickly came back.
Yeah and the wsop is basically the equivalent of a single room just on a larger scale. Of course the best are going to go where they are paid the most if there are better options nearby.
When I started dealing the WSOP 12 years ago the down rate was around $17. It slowly and steadily dropped ever since, due to people tipping less, players getting bigger starting stacks, and them introducing more small buyin events. The cheapest bracelet event used to be $1k and you got a 3k starting stack.
They now guarantee $15/20 downs, but they also took away the setup down which artificially inflates the number about 10%. So they're guaranteeing $13.50 for nlh, $18 for mix games and final tables. And since the lawsuit they started hugely over-hiring and now most dealers can only work 40 hours a week instead of 60 like the old days.
Most other rooms are just as bad, unfortunately. I'm not even going to Las Vegas any more. I'd rather push hard the rest of the year where I'm treated well and take the summer off.
When I started dealing the WSOP 12 years ago the down rate was around $17. It slowly and steadily dropped ever since, due to people tipping less, players getting bigger starting stacks, and them introducing more small buyin events. The cheapest bracelet event used to be $1k and you got a 3k starting stack.They now guarantee $15/20 downs, but they also took away the setup down w
Using the government inflation index it would take between $23-$24 now to equal $17 in 2013. Using an index that is not trying to underestimate inflation to make politicians look good and keep COLA down more like $28-$30.
While I agree with you in theory about anyone ever feeling pressure to tip and the quality of service should never depend upon the level of the tip, I think that logic breaks down in reality. At least in the U.S.In the U.S., dealers make a substantial amount of their income from tips (and this is expected as normal). If more and more players thought like you, dealers are going
WSOP dealer pay is more than fair. Any drop in dealer quality from 20 years ago is due to the 5x to 10x increase in field sizes that require 5x more dealers. There are not enough quality dealers to fill the 1700 dealers they need now. This is even more true now that Venetian, Wynn, Orleans, and others all run major events during WSOP to further drain the pool of quality dealers.
WSOP dealer pay is more than fair. Any drop in dealer quality from 20 years ago is due to the 5x to 10x increase in field sizes that require 5x more dealers. There are not enough quality dealers to fill the 1700 dealers they need now. This is even more true now that Venetian, Wynn, Orleans, and others all run major events during WSOP to further drain the pool of quality dealers
1. What is fair? Plus how do you get to decide for others?
2. If there are not enough quality dealers then that means that the pay is not high enough. That is literally economics 101. There are plenty of marginal poker players who COULD become decent dealers if they felt the pay made sense rather than playing. Part of it is the cost of Vegas in the summer. I know a few people who were school teachers. They got the summer off so they would deal the WSOP during the summer and make decent bank. Almost all of them do not do it anymore. Living in Vegas for the summer is expensive unless you are willing to go to an extreme and have a bunch of roommates. Furthermore, dealing in Vegas for the WSOP is tough. For an out of town dealer to make it work it means giving up 10 to 12 weeks of your summer and working long hours for 6 days a week.
Many dealers could make a few thousand after expenses, but it isn't worth the long hours, killing themselves while away from family.
Don't get me wrong, it is in the WSOP's interst to pay dealers as little as possible (it is also in the players interest). I totally understand that they walk a very fine line. They want to pay just enough to attract decent dealers, but no more.
It is basic economics and I understand both sides. I have been on both sides. I know what it is like to run a company where labor costs make the difference between a good year and a bad year. I also know what it is like to contemplate if working for a particular wage is worth it.
So whenever you hear someone talking about dealer quality or a shortage of dealers, just recognize that it is an economic issue. If you want more dealers or better dealers, then pay more. If you are willing to accept a small dealer shortage or poor dealers, then pay less.
With such a huge number of dealers needed, and I assume getting paid the same, whatever they pay is going to be not enough for the best dealers and too much for the worst.
So the good dealers are less likely to want to deal, and then the house is likely to reduce pay since it's still enough for the people they're hiring.
Really this unusual situation screws with the incentives. If they started paying more, more good dealers might want to work, but more bad ones will too, and it will be difficult for them to know which is which.
Unless I'm completely wrong about how this works in which case never mind me.
