I’ve received a lot of fantastic, supportive comments from a lot of you. NICE! I want to follow through on a few without having to go back and leave a comment in a long thread of comments -and those are the ones that pertain to ‘what is the right amount to tip’ and on ‘tournament tipping’. Somewhere in the myriad of posts here on Tango, I have one that specifically outlines what happens with tournament tips and how they are disbursed – but even using the search capability here, I’ve not been able to find it. Maybe I will, in the event that I do, I will link it up. And I’m a little in ultrashock that there are so many comments.

In the post “Comments and Tipping“, in the ‘on tipping’ section, is a bit of thought on tipping. First, one has to understand that no one is forced or required to leave a tip. Second, one has to understand that it does happen, in a lot of jobs, including someone taking your groceries out to the car, someone loading your car at a hardware store, and even in casino bathrooms there are tip jars set out in some places for the porters, etc. To act like tipping is not part of the service industry is to act like you don’t know how to yield when you are driving. Years ago in Vegas, it was customary to tip someone extra $$ to get a better seat in a showroom (maybe it still is but it’s doubtful with the way the computers are set up and tickets are generated on the internet).

I recently met another youngster named Matt that was playing in a $15-30H game I dealt. He was the youngest person at the table and after about 15 minutes into my down, I happened to look at him and smile, he said that I hadn’t given him anything he could play. I hear that quite a bit so I just smiled and went on dealing. A few minutes later he won a pot and gave me a toke and told me he’d been waiting to tip me for writing the blog, etc. Believe me, the tip he gave me was not merited by the size of the pot. I thanked him and we got to visit for a few minutes off and on before I got pushed.

There are some players that tip consistently, no matter if they win the blind or a pot of any size – that is usually $1. Those people are the bread and butter of the poker dealer. There are some people that never tip. Some that will only tip if they are winning and if they are stuck do not give up anything. Some that over tip and it’s a treat to have one of those people at the table. I dealt to a gent last night in a $5-10NLH game that made my entire night. Those players are few and far between but given an equal average and those extremely generous ones vs. the ones that don’t tip, it all comes out to a dailyaverage.

Having played an immense amount of poker, and watching dealer attitude and professionalism, there are a lot of dealers that I would never tip if I wasn’t employed in the casino industry. I could start a list a mile long of things that I’ve seen from dealers and things that I think they do that are ridiculous. This is one that I just got in an email from a friend of mine and it’s totally ludicrous. I do not believe a dealer should just be tipped because they pushed a pot. I do beieve that if you think the dealer is doing a good job, and has given you good service since you’ve known them, there’s nothing wrong with springing with a $5 toke now and then when you are ‘running good’. There are a lot of players in all limits that do exactly that, they give $2 on pots when they are running good in $30-60, etc. I don’t believe a $10 toke or more is out of the question when someone wins an unusually large pot with a lot of action in the hand. I also don’t believe a $25 toke is out of the question when someone wins a $60 or $70K pot. I do know that a lot of players (in high limit) don’t tip until the dealer leaves the down, most dealers are quite happy with that.

I’ve played a lot of poker in the room I work in. Because I’m a playing dealer, most dealers feel I should tip more. I do not agree with that. I still want to leave the table with some money in my pocket and not all of it in the dealer’s pocket. I’ve sat stuck for hours and won a small pot and given the dealer a $1 and they don’t even say thank you or wrap it, just shove it in their pocket and look away like I did something horrible to them. This leaves me with a very bad taste in my mouth. And I’ve sat in games and watched the dealer do the same things to other players, but if the player tipped more thana $1, they player got a thank you.

I’ve pushed pots in excess of $250,000 and never received anything, even when the same player won numerous pots during my down – and I’m not alone in that, lots of dealers can tell you the same story. Most of us don’t even think twice about it, it’s the norm. We know we are going to deal a ‘working deadspread’ when we enter the game.

To think that a player should be allowed to abuse us because the player tips is completely out of line also. I’ve listened to dealers say that they don’t mind the heat and card throwing as long as the abusive player throws them a bone when they win a pot. UGH!

To think that I think you should just throw me money because I push you a pot is ridiculous. I do not feel that way. The majority of the people that I have been dealing to over the years have a lot of respect for me in the dealer’s box – BECAUSE I DO MY JOB. I don’t change my attitude and flip out. I sincerely try to run a good game without mistakes. I have very few problems with anyone in the dealing/playing environment and that says a lot for my skills when I sit in the box. I’velistened toplayers massacre other dealers verbally and they are still talking about the dealer when I sit down. It’s not pretty.

Lance has posted a comment several times,on my recent posts,and Lance is an example of a player that takes care of dealers and plays for a living. Lance is always courteous, always tips, and is a game starter. A game starter is someone that comes in every day and plants their butt in a chair and plays short handed or full, no matter what it takes to start the game. Without those players, poker games would never get off the ground. I’ve never had a bad encounter with Lance. He doesn’t load the dealer’s pocket up with chips but he consistently tips and at the limits he plays, a lot of those players do not tip. Thanks for posting Lance, without people like you I’d get a job across town in a small room.

A recent comment (at the bottom of the comment thread) on “Behind the Noise” tells me that dealing is a menial labor job and anyone can do it with two weeks training. *Stop it, Stop it! You’re killing me!* I totally disagree with that. Dealing poker and doing it well is an art.

Most people cannot even begin to master the mechanical side of it and do it smoothly with a month of dealing 40 hours a week. Dealing with all of the different colors and denominations of chips, games being played (mixed game formats may have around 10 or 12 different games), knowing the rules pertaining to low limit and high limit (yes there are some rules that are different at different levels), taking Time from each player vs. time from a pot (only if there’s a flop in some limits, out of the small blind before the first hand is dealt in some limits), keeping track of a pot for PL, and keeping track of a pot in some Kill games because a minimum has to be in the pot for it to be a kill, taking fills, making sure your banks are correct, floor people that interrupt you right in the middle of a hand, keeping track of seat change requests, cocktail request and watching for the girl in our section, and running a game. A lot of dealers NEVER run their game, they just sit and wait for the players to tell the first player to act, that it’s up to them. I feel that it takes a new dealer six months of 40 hours a week before they become familiar with almost every aspect of what is happening, and the order it happens in, and their own mechanical dexterity. That doesn’t even get into the little nuances of the game and being on top of under currents and situations going on in the game. Not to mention that being a mind reader and a psychologist and able to deal with children having temper tantrums is a huge plus.

Dealing is definitely not brain surgery but it requires skill and thought to have it come off as it should. I’ve taught a lot of people to deal poker, some of them one on one, some of them in groups, and I can guarantee you that the average person, even if they have some knowledge of the game of poker, could never take a two week class and step into Bellagio’s poker room and even come close to handling a shift. But Ron, you are entitled to your opinion.

So…to those of you that want to know what is a good tip, $1 or $2 is very nice, more is wonderful but not expected – from my side of the street anyway. I can’t speak for the rest of the working crew.

Tournament tipping has gotten all skewed out of whack. Years ago the norm was to leave 10% of the prize – the bigger the prize got, it dropped to 5%. Then it became less and less so most establishments began taking a % of the prize pool. That % is disbursed throughout the card room staff. The Brush/list people, the supervisors, the cashier’s cage, the chip runners, the tournament director staff, and the remainder of it gets whacked into the number of downs dealt. That’s why each dealer signs a down card when they enter the box to deal a tournament. During big tournaments there are thousands of dealer downs. If a player leaves a tournament tip for the dealers, the tournament director staff gets 35% of that and the rest goes into the dealer ‘down pool’. If the player leaves nothing, the whole room at least can rely on the % taken from the prize pool. The word around the entire poker room, after the Five Star Classic in April, was that not one of the final six left anything as a toke for the dealers. That may not mean that the tournament director didn’t receive a toke (they don’t have to put theirs in the toke pool).

Nuff on tipping. It is what it is. I deal because I like dealing. I like the people contact. It’s like being a contractor, I work my little section of green felt and move on to the next one. See you there!