Casino Tipping Ettiquette

[TIGERSTUMP]

wen i play cash tabs live i only tip wen i win a hand,,,with livin in the uk if i win a small pot i dont tip,if i win 30 pound plus pot i only tip 1 os 2 pounds

 

[abomb576]

I usually to tip after winning a big hand and giving 1-2, Anyone know ht e etiquette for blackjack?

 

[StormRaven]

Well its just, i dont see how you can really beat the game long term with such incredibly huge tips + rake...

or maybe you dont mind about profiting and you just play for fun?

Okay so I had a few conversations with some of the regulars at the casino about this. Many of them said what you did and along the lines of what Stu has written. I decided to try something new as I want to remain open minded about this, people have a right to tip little, too much, not at all, etc; Friday night I decided I would only tip $1 per pot that was $50 and under (most pots I play in are an avg of $100). I also lowered my tips to $2 for pots of $50-$150 and then lowered my tips to $5 for pots of $150-$300. Friday night I did not win any pots over $300. I only had a small profit Friday night anyways, wasn't a good night. Most people feel my tipping Friday night was acceptable, several dealers did notice the difference and kept asking if I was alright or ahead for the night. Overall, there did not seem to be any effect on how I was treated by the staff and there was 1 iffy call that a supervisor had to make (1 dealer who normally doesn't deal poker was having a fit cuz I was playing around with my ipod while at the table but not when I was in hand. She continued although I showed her that I had an ipod and not an iphone and was only going through my music playlists.) The floor came over and still sided in my favor and stated I was allowed to have my ipod in my hand. Now I know she was being pissy because I had won a $150 pot and threw her a $2 tip. She doesn't normally deal poker but she has been in there lately due to a shortage in poker dealers. The floor still sided with me either way. I do worry that if an iffy call had to be made by the dealer involving money she would've been a witch to me and sided with someone else. But on the other hand, I stopped tipping her altogether because of her bad attitude and because the dealers share tips it hurt all of them.

I have to think about this some more. I think next week I will experiment around again some more with over-tipping vs under-tipping (depending on people's viewpoints) and see how it goes. I always lower my tips if I am losing and the fact is dealers are paid a lower hourly amount because they get tips. Nothing I can do can change that. I do like Stu's idea of no tipping, just have people do their jobs but that isn't the way things are set up and I don't see enough people will stop tipping altogether to try and make the house change their minds.

I think when you are established you can probably get away with lower tips but if you are a new player to a place I think tipping a little extra (as long as you are winning) will make the dealers and house side in your favor on iffy calls.

I only tip the valet $2 after they bring me my truck. I don't tip when they go and park it. I know most people at the casino I play at tip $5+. So I guess it's in how we view the job the person is doing and the value we put upon it.

 

[StormRaven]

I usually to tip after winning a big hand and giving 1-2, Anyone know ht e etiquette for blackjack?

I don't know for sure. I know most people will tip the odd $1 for each blackjack, some tip after a few winning hands and some tip after the end of the shoe. I do the later, if I'm up I throw them some money straight out instead of trying tip with the hand, if I lose the hand then the house gets that extra money I was trying to tip the dealer with and the dealer and the player both lose out that way.

 

[JOEBOB69]

Storm glad to see you rethinking what you first said.An lol i seen the other post on the live game thread.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

I don't know for sure. I know most people will tip the odd $1 for each blackjack, some tip after a few winning hands and some tip after the end of the shoe. I do the later, if I'm up I throw them some money straight out instead of trying tip with the hand, if I lose the hand then the house gets that extra money I was trying to tip the dealer with and the dealer and the player both lose out that way.

If you are experimenting with tipping, give the time based tip a go and see how people react to that.

Pay upfront say $3 every half hour.

See how people react to that and more importantly, how it effects your overall win rate. So note what you would have tipped usually and how much you tip on a time basis.

Then consider what is a 'fair' tip.

Does tipping per pot won add up to an overly generous tip by the end of the session.

Then look at it from the other way around. If you roughly end up tipping $20 for say a 2hr session on the 'by pot' basis, how would you feel about handing over $5 every half hour?

And of course, how do people react to all of this.

 

[BM0529]

The more I think about it, the more anti-tipping I am.

Ill try and explain as maybe it is a cultural thing.

To me tipping is something that is done when someone goes out of their way to help you. They do something which they really didn't have to and therefore you personally reward them.

I don't see how a waiter bringing me a drink qualifies as 'above and beyond' How would a waiter do his job without bringing me the drink?

Now the argument that often comes back is that these people don't earn all that much.. they make their money up with tips.

I don't get it.

Why not abolish mandatory tipping and just pay them more?

Well the argument goes something like... well the employer will incur additional costs as he has to pay his staff more.. this means that prices will rise.

This doesn't hold water. The prices are already high if I am obliged to tip anyone and everyone who simply does what they are employed to do.

In fact I would go one step further and call the tipping culture in the US degrading. Employees are effectively being asked to live on handouts or 'scraps from the master's table' rather than getting a pay cheque for their work.

I play mostly 1-2NL and tip 1-2$ per hand with the exception of very big pots (200-300$), I often then will give around 5$ or so. I do feel however tipping is overdone in many aspects of society although many countries outside the U.S. do not do it.....nevertheless I tip waiters/waitresses/dealers etc...the only people I never tip are maids in hotels/motels...in my opinion there is no reason for somebody performing that job to receive tips, there is no direct service at any time to the customer and if their working in a fancy place they should be getting paid well enough.

 

[Grossberger]

The problem I see with tipping at the end of a session is lets say during the course of play early on you win a couple sizable pots say $200 + and you don't tip and then say you get into some pots where maybe you have aces and get a allin preflop and get outrdrawn and end the session down money are you still gonna tip at that point? probably not that's why its better just to tip when you win a pot and its done.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

The problem I see with tipping at the end of a session is lets say during the course of play early on you win a couple sizable pots say $200 + and you don't tip and then say you get into some pots where maybe you have aces and get a allin preflop and get outrdrawn and end the session down money are you still gonna tip at that point? probably not that's why its better just to tip when you win a pot and its done.

Thats why the advice is to Tip at the start of the session and to keep tipping every half hour or hour.

 

[downtown23]

I only tip on winning pots and I usually tip $1 for smaller pots and vary it on bigger pots depending on the size of the pots.

 

[OneMoreBust]

so if you are making 2BB/100 and see 50 hands an hour (high estimate i think?) that means you make 1BB an hour.

Now out of those 50 hands take the 3-5 hands you win that hour, maybe more, and $1 per, and how does that even make sense.

I've played for 12 hours at 2/4 limit with $100 and by the time I went out, I had probably tipped at least $60 and gotten raked? A lot

If I didnt like the dealers so much Id be tempted to run a few sessions with 0 tipping and seeing how it works out.

 

[dresturn2]

for me it depends......i dont tip unless im up at i dont go past 50 dollars a session...they get paid well to deal at casinos anyway so there is no big hurry to make them richer.....they arent waitresses who make half or minimum wage and depend on tips

 

[Grindit9]

for me it depends......i dont tip unless im up at i dont go past 50 dollars a session...they get paid well to deal at casinos anyway so there is no big hurry to make them richer.....they arent waitresses who make half or minimum wage and depend on tips

There are a lot of dealers that dont get payed hourly wages. They live off of tips. Thats why i always tip even if i pick up the blinds i tip a buck. Big pots i tip up to 5 bucks.

 

[Bobjim37]

How about tournaments? Are you expected to tip if you bust outside the money?

 

[Sharesol]

How about tournaments? Are you expected to tip if you bust outside the money?

Poker players who bust out early do not tip the dealers. But that means if you do fall into the money your going to be the one tipping so do so well!

There is a solution to the tipping problem i have read about tho. At the orleans in Vegas when you sign up for a tournament you can tip $3.00 to the dealer for 10% more chips. This makes sure that the dealers are taken care of because there are many many players that do not tip because they feel the winning are simply covering their losses.

 

[vanquish]

haha it would suck to bust early from a tournament and still have to tip

 

[Xavier]

In the uk casino dealers are not allowed to take tips and will be fired immediately if they get caught doing so.
The only staff who can take tips are the waiting staff who bring people drinks.
The tipping culture in the US is bizarre in the extreme.
I don't really see why people in certain jobs should be expected to get tips when others don't.
People who work in supermarkets earn next to nothing and noone bothers tipping them.

 

[Ranger390]

Where I play, the dealers are paid $4.08 per hour, which basically pays their taxes. Their entire take home pay is their tips. As far as tournament go, $5.00 of the entry goes to a dealers' pool and for another $5.00 you get additional chips...3000-5000, depending on the starting stacks.

On the other hand, at a casino in Ontario, canada where I have played, the dealers have a union and are paid in the neighborhood of $18 dollars per hour, plus tips. Given the taxes in Ontario and Canada, this isn't as much as it sounds like it would be in terms of take home pay.

In short, dealers do depend on tips, at least where I have played in the in the US and Canada.

 

[Bobjim37]

Poker players who bust out early do not tip the dealers. But that means if you do fall into the money your going to be the one tipping so do so well!

There is a solution to the tipping problem i have read about tho. At the orleans in Vegas when you sign up for a tournament you can tip $3.00 to the dealer for 10% more chips. This makes sure that the dealers are taken care of because there are many many players that do not tip because they feel the winning are simply covering their losses.

Good info, Im going to Vegas for some days in September and plan to play a coupple of tournaments so Its useful to know the etiquette.

If you end up in the money, are you expected to tip a certain percentage of your winnings, lets say if you buy in for 50USD and end up with 300..Should you then tip around 10% of your profit = 25 USD? Is that the normal way to do it?

 

[Grindit9]

I think 10% is alot to tip in a tournament. I would probably tip around 5% so about 12-13 bucks. I think that would be average. It depends tho for how long the tournament is running.....

 

[StormRaven]

I don't really mind the tipping, and my last few sessions I have made it a point to not tip more than $10 for any pot (I play mostly $2/$5 during the summer as there are enough people to keep a game going at this level).

One of the biggest problems I have at my casino is that the dealer tips are pooled. I don't agree with that at all. Some dealers just suck, or have bad attitudes, or don't give a rats azz about controlling the table and therefore I don't feel they deserve a portion of my tips. I do tip less when I have one of those dealers on the table. The other night I only gave this dealer $1 per pot, even when I won a few pots that were $400+. The other dealers suffer for it I know but I'm not tipping big to a dealer that's an azz. I told mgmt about it as well, another dealer overheard my conversation and when the bad dealer got up for break I saw 3 dealers go to him and talk to him. When he was back on another table I noticed his attitude was better.

Anywho, as a side note. Like at most casino's there is a waiting list to get on the tables. Our casino gives out pagers. I had 15 people ahead of me when I got there Friday evening and I had only been waiting 10 minutes when mgmt came over and put me on a table ahead of the list. Not fair I know, but I know they do this because I'm a good customer with a good attitude. Does the extra tipping help? It might. But like I said, all this past week I made sure to not tip over $10 for any of the big pots and so far it hasn't had any affect on how I'm "favored" in the poker room by many staffers and I would like to say that it helped my bottom line, probably did, but unfortunately I ran pretty bad this week. Maybe I'll notice the lower tipping better next week if I can get back on my good game.

 

[Grindit9]

Tipping the floor manager helps two, he controls the seating. A lot of people forget this.

 

[joeey]

ALWAYS always a per hand per drink per anything basis a good tip i believe is always 1 for drinks and 1 to the dealer but only when you win and if the pot is nice usually 3 is a good tip