Interesting perspective on tipping from a casino dealer
I have a Facebook friend who is a dealer at a California Indian casino. She isn't a close friend, but more of an acquaintance -- actually a friend of a friend. I get along with her, but we aren't close, and in fact have never met in person.
Her life story is actually interesting (former stripper & bit-part actress in the '70s and '80s, but is now near 60 years old), but I'm not going to talk about that in this post.
Instead, I will discuss a post she made about a guy who tipped her after she dealt him a $14,000 jackpot hand in Ultimate Texas Holdem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by casino dealer
NUTHIN' LIKE PAYING OUT A $14,000 JACKPOT & GETTIN' A $100 TIP! WOO - HOO!!
ULTIMATE TEXAS HOLDEM
DELT HIM A STRAIGHT FLUSH ON THE FLOP SO HE GOT 10% OF THE $140,000 JACKPOT
So the "woo - hoo" clearly seemed sarcastic, but I just wanted to make sure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Are you happy with the $100 tip or do you think it should have been more?
Quote:
Originally Posted by casino dealer
HELL NO I'M NOT HAPPY! THAT'S NOT EVEN 1%!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Okay, so that's what I thought.
Now I should give you perspective from the other side.
Ultimate Texas Holdem is a negative expectation game, meaning that players will lose over time. The guy who hit the $14,000 jackpot has likely lost far more than that at casinos in the past year.
While $14,000 seems like a big score on the surface, in truth it's just getting back a fraction of the money the guy has lost gambling at casinos like yours.
While I understand that the dealers work for tips, you can't expect large tips when people hit a big score, because they are probably still losing overall.
Similarly, you don't tip them when you deal them bad cards and they lose (which is most of the time).
$100 is actually a pretty good tip for a dealer. You should put out of your head how much he "won", and instead be happy that someone gave you an extra $100 for doing your job as you normally do.
While some players may tip more on jackpots like this, you shouldn't EXPECT such a tip.
In fact, unrealistic expectations of high tips is why I stopped tipping dealers entirely. I found that if I gave them what was fair/realisitc, they gave me a sour face and acted like I was an asshole. So if I'm going to be an asshole for tipping them something fair, I'd rather be the same asshole in their eyes and keep the tip I was going to give them.
Thoughts?