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Ace Speaks:
About Tipping
By Rolf Slotboom

The subject of tipping has been the source of a lot of controversy for a long time now. In this article I'll try to show the present situation in some of the popular cardrooms, explain the way casinos, dealers and players act regarding this and finally, I'll add my personal opinions towards the subject.

I'm a European poker player, and most of the time I play in The Netherlands or Austria. In The Netherlands there's only one (states-) casino. Since dealers in Europe don't get to keep their own tips (that is, tips are divided among all employees according to a predetermined structure), they are not really bothered with dealing a lot of hands, the quality of their work, the atmosphere at the table, and also whether or not they will receive a tip at the end of the deal. For most of the (good) players this means they rarely tip, unless the pot is very large and/or the dealer does a very good job.

In Austria however, there are a few 24-hour card casinos where dealers can keep their own tips (in fact, they even pay the house for every 30 minutes they're in the box because people tip very well in Europe), so they deal at rapid pace and expect to get something like two American dollars (30 Austrian schillings) for any reasonable pot. (In the U.S. I played in the Mirage, Bellagio, Commerce and Bay 101 and I noticed the dealers there hardly ever received more than one dollar per hand, even at, or rather especially at, the higher limits). It was a couple of months ago in the Concord Card Casino in Vienna (Europe's biggest card room) the following incident happened:

My girlfriend and I were on holiday in the Austrian city and, both of us having been dealers there, we headed towards Concord to visit some old friends and colleagues (her objective) and to play some poker (my objective). I found a nice U.S. $10-20 tenhanded hold'em game with a pretty soft line-up and also mostly players I had played with a couple of times before. The game was a bit more aggressive than I expected though, so I had to fold just about every hand and after having played for about 75 minutes I was down like $150, not having won a hand. That's when a new dealer came to the table (let's say his name was John), a former colleague of ours and someone who had accused me in public of tipping badly a couple of times before, since he expected me (having been a dealer myself) to tip better than, or at least as good as, the average player in the house.

However, it is my opinion that if the casino can afford to let dealers pay table money to the house to do their job because people tip so well, then people are probably tipping too well. In the Austrian cardrooms the rake is a little bit higher than in the U.S. and if on top of that players are expected to also tip extremely well, the games might become very hard to beat or, as had been the case for some time, most dealers would figure to make more money on average than even the best players. Therefore, depending on the dealer, most of the time I tip half a dollar for a small pot, one dollar for an average pot and two dollars for a big pot (10-20-30 Austrian schillings), which is less than average but still a lot of money, considering that I play poker six days a week.

So here I was in this game and, lo and behold, after having played for one and a half hours, I won my first pot. I was in the big blind with 8s6s, three callers, no raise, flop everybody checked, turn I bet, got one caller, river I (having eight-high) bet, opponent folded, I won. The pot contained four big bets (one and a half of which were my own), the dealer raked $2 (30 schillings) and I decided to tip him half a dollar (10 schillings). I wouldn't normally do this for such a tiny pot, but I wanted to "start over again" (I thought maybe in the past this dealer had, accidentally, gotten a little less from me than he should, so I tipped in this case to show him that this hadn't been on purpose).

He took the money without saying anything, threw it into his chiptray and, without even looking at me, went on to the next hand. Then, two hands later, I called on the button with pocket eights after three people had limped, the small blind folded so we took the flop fivehanded. Flop Q-7-2, everybody checked to me, I bet and got one caller, turn 6, check, I bet, my opponent folded, I won. Once again I decided to tip him better than I would normally do (one dollar instead of half a dollar, 20 schillings instead of 10) and this time, when he picked up the chips to put them into his chiptray, he was shaking his head in dissatisfaction, while getting ready for the next deal.

About half an hour later the floorman came up to me and asked about what had happened, since John had (once again) complained how bad my tipping was. According to this dealer, I had won one pretty big and one huge pot (me still being down $60 at that point) and he thought he had gotten a lot less from me than he was entitled to. I explained the situation to the floorman, including also that this dealer is sloppy, often bad-tempered, disliked by a lot of players (in fact two of them didn't tip him at all because of his behavior) and that in the last, supposedly huge pot, he even threw my own bet into the pot to make the pot look bigger (an old dealer trick). So how huge could the pot have been?

I also mentioned that I knew that most (former) Concord dealers tip very well whenever they play, but that since I'm playing for a living I cannot and will not tip so much that it will take away my edge. The floorman (a very nice person for that matter) apologized for the way this dealer had acted and that's probably the end of it. The dealer will most likely get away with his behavior, which is fine with me and besides, that is not the point. What is the point?

Casinos have always emphasized that if dealers do their jobs well, the players should reward them appropriately. Even some poker writers have stated this, although I have never seen top players tip very well (in fact, I've seen lots of very good players, even some poker "celebrities" not tip at all, yet act like they are the most important people in the house, getting away with their behavior without ever having been warned or penalized by casino management).

When I was a dealer in Vienna, there was one player in particular who was cursing at the dealers non-stop (especially when losing), trying to make them feel uncomfortable and insecure whenever he could, yet at the same time not rewarding the dealers who did their jobs as expected whenever he won a pot, and the house hardly did anything to stop this (him being a high-limit, "important-to-the-house" player). I think that players should not be the ones to ensure dealers can make a decent living. In my opinion the house should pay its dealers well if they do their jobs like they're supposed to, and if players want to tip some money to certain dealers because they do their jobs well or are just nice, that's fine.

However, players should never be expected to give money to the dealer after winning a pot (that is, whenever a player loses and complains about that, the dealer will say: "sorry, I just deal, I have no influence on the cards." Why then should he be rewarded in case those random dealt cards give you a winner?*). The house should be able to pay the dealers a decent wage out of the rake and/or time collection and if that's not possible, then something has to be done to change that or the game should just cease to be. If the house doesn't get enough revenues out of the poker games to employ the dealers, the games have no future in the long run whatsoever. Casinos always mention they have to charge people for playing because they provide for the game, including: a space, chips, cards and the dealers. If the players are supposed to support the dealers, then they're paying twice for the same thing, right?

Then again, if it turns out that we, the players, are expected to support the dealer's income, then the house should take a firm stand against anybody who declines to leave a decent tip. However, in my opinion, they can't have it both ways. Either the house pays its dealers well or we, the players, do. In the last case, the rights and duties players and casinos have towards dealers will change drastically. And situations like the one described here would certainly come to an end, then.

* It is also possible for a good player to win a certain hand by his skillful play, despite the cards that were dealt to him. Why then should a player be forced to tip the dealer for the cards that were given, when it was not the cards but the way he played them that earned him the pot? If, on the other hand, tips are not supposed to be for the cards that were given, but to share the joy of winning money with the dealer, why then do dealers rarely ever really care about the players who are stuck and down a lot?