How are the tips at WSOP? Do pros tip more or less than average?
Thanks
The tips at WSOP can be great - if you are good at what you do and choose the right jobs to work each day (we draw for who picks first and go down the list alphabetically and we get to choose what we want to do each day, unless you're last then you are stuck in whatever is left over...but mostly you will get what you want)...and if you pick the right shift too.
Now its tough to judge on if pros tip more because they are mostly in the tourneys, and mostly you do not get tipped during a tourney until its over, and all tips go into the down pool.
Most pros in cash are at the Aria or Bellagio because they have private high stakes rooms, whereas at WSOP the cash is out in the open because its a convention center and there are too many railers (in tourneys they like this, in cash they do not)...rarely do you see a well known 'tv pro' playing cash at WSOP.
Now, sometimes they will play satellites...and they do tip well if they win, but almost all of the high stakes satellite players tip very well - roughly $100-$200 per satellite (which can take about 2-4 hours)...if you are good, and they will request you if you are as well. A lady friend of mine dealt a $525 satellite and got tipped $1k because of all the side action at those levels. This is for single table satellites and it is only one dealer who deals it the whole way through no matter how long it takes..
Some pros will play the multi table sats, but here all tips get put into the down pool. However once I dealt a mega-sat final table with James Woods, he was one of winners and took a photo with me and hung out and talked with us - this is as good of a tip as you can get!
A down is an amount of time a dealer spends at one table - at WSOP and most
casinos this is 30 minutes. All the downs are counted at end of tourney. The tips along with a portion of the tourney rake are put into the down pool. Say dealers spent 100 downs dealing a tourney, the rake plus tips were $1000. Each down is then worth $10. If you dealt 10 downs in that tourney your tip is $100 for 5 hours (this is just easy numbers as an example - the WSOP down rate is usually between $16 and $25 per down). This of course is on top of your hourly wage which is $8.50 at WSOP. So with above example you are making $28.50 an hour dealing. Not too shabby.
Cash players will tip well, especially if you are good and the dealer you just pushed was not...and if you keep returning each day they will get to know you and tips will be even better. However- cash game dealing at WSOP can be a real grind and mentally taxing because you are pushing through strings of tables where each table can be a different game, at different stakes, and different rake systems, plus you have to count wells and make sure the dealer you pushed wasnt short, etc...but again if you are good its well worth it.
Obviously you can get unlucky for a day or so, but over 8 weeks it will all work out to a great average. Last year I killed it and overall made about $2k a week - but I know all the secrets to making the most money there (in comparison the first year I worked there I made about $1500 a week, so knowing how to manipulate the system I made an extra $4k over the course of the series, but I was a pretty good dealer going in....they do have some newbies there due to amounts they need to hire, a bad newbie may make considerably less)
