Comp etiquette: If you invite someone to dinner on your food comp, what are they expected to pay?

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Originally Posted by monet

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

I believe in paying for anyone that I invite to dinner and that includes tip. Comps or not. However, most people that I choose to associate with are most likely going to insist on taking care of the tip. This thread is an example of the poker community mentality. A bunch of self obsessed and selfish losers with a few exceptions.

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It is obvious that you deal with both cultures or communities. I haven't dealt with the poker side for about 7 years but it hasn't changed that much from my understanding. Poker Players as a whole and that is a high 99% of the so called "pro players" are some sick individuals. Myself Included. One of the most funny things to me is the types that refuse to take part in any collusion with poker but they will stiff every dealer and any tipped position employee. Not only will they stiff everyone but they will constantly preach about why they stiff them and break down the money lost annually or how they are saving thousands upon thousands from not tipping. It is just ugly plain and simple.

If you invite players or people to dinner and you are not upfront with your intentions than the person who invited said players to dinner is responsible for all bills and tips. If you want to tell someone that you have a comp and we should go to dinner you should make it known to that person right there that you expect them to chip in on the tip or take care of the tip or take care of overages. The problem is these players don't say anything till after the bill comes and than the war breaks out. They are most likely doing it to push buttons or start an argument because gamblers in general love to needle one another.

Most of the time and I am sure you understand this Maxpen is that players like myself or you or others are inviting many bust outs or rail birds to free dinner. How can anyone expect rail birds or bust outs to chip into the bill for anything. These people have been in town for decades so it is known who they are and it is many, many players in general. However the bust out is much more common in the poker community compared to the machine world.
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The people who went to this particular dinner with Kessler are longtime poker players, none of whom are broke.

All could afford this small overage/tip, and all were aware that he was paying for the vast majority of the meal with a comp, and was inviting them because he didn't want the full comp to go to waste.

A prior agreement isn't necessary.

A good person would recognize that the player with the comp has picked up almost the entire check, and basic etiquette would involve picking up the small overage and the tip. This is especially true if the "invite" is not a "Let me take you out to dinner out of appreciation" thing, but rather a "I'm being generous with my comp and sharing it with others, otherwise I wouldn't have invited anyone here" thing.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

BTW, keep in mind that the 80% thing I was offering was NOT doing me any favors. I would have to go down to Caesars with them to purchase the tickets, plus I tend to like to hold the RCs for meals at 100% value instead of the 80% on freeplay, so I was still giving up something. I was trying to do this person as much of a favor as I could without screwing myself, but they just refused to understand.

Also, this wasn't a close friend, or even a friend at all. It was an acquintance I knew through poker, and we had never spent any time together socially outside of large groups.

Some people just have an amazing feeling of entitlement to other people's things.

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Wow, imagine that, a self obsessed selfish poker player. You call me a Troll for pointing it out and then tell a story verifying my accusations as truth. No wonder you can't get control of your sites. You are internally confused. Probably too much time at the poker tables. You need a vacation.

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I call you a troll because you have 138 posts here, and rarely have I seen you contribute any valuable information. Most of those 138 posts are some form of trolling, especially recently.

Your post responding to me, ending with "This thread is an example of the poker community mentality. A bunch of self obsessed and selfish losers with a few exceptions" is obviously an attempt to slam me, since I'm a poker player.

If I were "selfish", I wouldn't be providing TWO forums to the public (plus a weekly internet radio show), ad-free, without even attempting to make money.

Try again.

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You reap what you sow.

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Originally Posted by GwoAE

I had a similar situation a while back but like adults we figured it out before we went. If Kessler would have said, hey guys I am using comps and will share but you all cover the overage then there is no issue.

I had someone invite me to local steakhouse in casino. He said he had 150 in comps and would treat if I picked up tip. That tip is going to be $40ish. I told him no thanks because my meal would only be $50 and saving 10 was not worth it.

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No doubt Kessler isn't the best at handling a lot of social situations, so it's possible that he didn't handle it gracefully. I wasn't there, so I can't say either way.

I will say that, upon being informed that Kessler expected them to cover a small overage & tip in exchange for using the comp to pay for the vast majority of the meal, everyone else should have immediately backed down and just coughed up the lol $12.

In your siuation with the steakhouse, your actions were understandable. An even more extreme example would be the following:

Say that Allen Kessler has a $400 steakhouse comp. He asks if I want to join him, and I tell him that I already ate, but that I'll come by for dessert. I show up and it's only me and Allen. He decides to order the Kobe beef because he has so much comp money to burn. I order just a $10 dessert. The bill comes out to $405 -- $395 being Allen's, and $10 being mine. Clearly Allen shouldn't expect me to pay the $80 or so tip (and $5 overage) on this meal, since he used over 97% of the comp on himself. (In fairness to Allen, this is a hypothetical and I've never heard of him doing this to anyone.)

But if you eat on a comp and utilize roughly your fair share of it, then you should contribute to the tip. So if you're out with one other person and use roughly half (or even 35% or more) of the comp, you should cover the tip. If you're out with 2 others, you and the third person should split the tip if you used 25% or more of the comp. Etc, etc, etc. It's not too hard to eyeball the situation and adjust what you do based upon whether you really utilized the comp, or if you just ate a small amount on it.

Incidentally, this situation came up in the Kessler story. One of the people with Allen only ordered a single $6 appetizer. He later asked Allen if he was one of the unnamed people being criticized, and reasoned that he shouldn't be expected to kick in for an overage or tip when he simply used up $6 of the comp. Allen clarified that, no, he wasn't referring to that guy.

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

Wow, imagine that, a self obsessed selfish poker player. You call me a Troll for pointing it out and then tell a story verifying my accusations as truth. No wonder you can't get control of your sites. You are internally confused. Probably too much time at the poker tables. You need a vacation.

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I call you a troll because you have 138 posts here, and rarely have I seen you contribute any valuable information. Most of those 138 posts are some form of trolling, especially recently.

Your post responding to me, ending with "This thread is an example of the poker community mentality. A bunch of self obsessed and selfish losers with a few exceptions" is obviously an attempt to slam me, since I'm a poker player.

If I were "selfish", I wouldn't be providing TWO forums to the public (plus a weekly internet radio show), ad-free, without even attempting to make money.

Try again.

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You reap what you sow.

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Okay, what am I "sowing"?

I'm providing two sites to the public -- one of which you use -- at no benefit to myself. In fact, these cost me money to run, and take up my time.

Again, I'd like to hear how I can be described as "selfish".

Even in this discussion, I (truthfully) stated earlier that I always offer to pay the full tip when someone takes me out to eat on their comp.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

I call you a troll because you have 138 posts here, and rarely have I seen you contribute any valuable information. Most of those 138 posts are some form of trolling, especially recently.

Your post responding to me, ending with "This thread is an example of the poker community mentality. A bunch of self obsessed and selfish losers with a few exceptions" is obviously an attempt to slam me, since I'm a poker player.

If I were "selfish", I wouldn't be providing TWO forums to the public (plus a weekly internet radio show), ad-free, without even attempting to make money.

Try again.

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You reap what you sow.

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Okay, what am I "sowing"?

I'm providing two sites to the public -- one of which you use -- at no benefit to myself. In fact, these cost me money to run, and take up my time.

Again, I'd like to hear how I can be described as "selfish".

Even in this discussion, I (truthfully) stated earlier that I always offer to pay the full tip when someone takes me out to eat on their comp.

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I made it clear in my accusations of self obsession and selfishness against the poker community that there were exceptions. You have put yourself in the exception category. Good for you.

You reap what you sow was in reference to accusing me of simply trolling. What else is there to do? This whole site is a troll fest due to all the disorder and lack of rules. It is anarchy.

Other than Mickeys road trips this site is pretty much dumb and dumber stroking each other's cocks over a VP system that is BS. One of the dummies was banned and brought back on a supposed limited leash that you let run amok. I joined shortly before that. Once that happened I decided to be an anarchist. When in Rome, as they say.

Not exactly the same situation, but related.....a few years ago I was in Vegas and had a ton of food credit to use. I don’t remember exactly why. Maybe a 7stars trip that I was using before it expired. I was having dinner, by myself, and wondering how I was going to use up all of these food comps.
I noticed an elderly couple seated a few tables away from me. I decided to “pay it forward” and told the server that I wanted to pay their bill, anonymously. The server screwed up and told them it was me. Okay...whatever. They thanked me but I noticed that they hadn’t left a tip. I confirmed this with the server so I paid it.
Next day at lunch I decided to try again, as I still had plenty of comps. I was successful at the anonymity this time, with a table of two middle-aged women, but again, they did not leave a tip. So again, I did for them.
So after spending about $20 in tips and trying to do a nice thing and hopefully make someone’s day, I decided never again.

Forget that comps are used, or gift certificates, or cash, or wampum, or travellers checks.....if you invite someone to dinner then you pay for it all. The method of payment is immaterial. The dude could have saved some comp dollars for anoter time...but it seems he didnt want to eat alone.

However if you give full disclosure at the beginning..."I have a 60 dollar comp...therefore the 3 of us gets 20 each and if you go over you pay"......then thats the plan, thats therules...they can accept or decline.

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Originally Posted by RS__

Just pay it and don't invite that flea next time you have a comp.

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Discussion should have ended here.

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

Wow, imagine that, a self obsessed selfish poker player. You call me a Troll for pointing it out and then tell a story verifying my accusations as truth. No wonder you can't get control of your sites. You are internally confused. Probably too much time at the poker tables. You need a vacation.

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Isn't it obvious that he enjoys that this forum is nothing but a troll site? The site was heading in somewhat of a direction to learn about gambling or advantage play but after he left Singer/Regins back the site took a horrible turn. Dan Druff said that the reason he let Rob come back was because traffic was low and he wanted to generate more traffic. So that tells us he doesn't care about the content of the forum but that it is generating traffic by all means necessary. I tried for about 450 posts or so (Disregarding Your Warnings) to be reasonable and tell everyone what I play and how I play it. Many times I am involved in something that is immoral or against policy but that is just how it is. I also tried to share my own personal life and going to hockey games and whatnot. It didn't really matter if anyone wanted to read all those long posts... they have the choice to read or not read but I put the stuff out there because I wanted to. I wanted to meet some like minded individuals or help players understand how to actually make some money inside of the Casino and I gave them the options of doing it in places that didn't care or they could choose to be a little more dishonest and I posted up ways of how to do it that way as well. So I gave the forum the choice of how to go about it. They could play at a thin edge and do everything on the up and up and still beat the games or they could choose another route. Personally I have no problem with the dishonest ways of life.

However the members and the site owner do not want honesty in posts about gambling. I am not sure what they want. Bill had said that these forums were for entertainment purposes only which makes more sense now. It appears that it is just a place to have fun and call each other names and troll and for the owners it is a place to generate traffic and some revenue. I didn't see one member say how great it was to let Rob Singer back into the Forums and he broke his own reinstatement rules from day one with no repercussions. As a matter of fact all you see is members griping to Dan to not allow Rob back at the Forum but to no avail. The only one with weight around here is Mendlebread. When he complains to Dan about whatever than Dan goes around and changes the rules or accommodates. Dan is becoming the Wiz of Odds going around and deleting posts and even whole threads lately.

Dan says that he will not tolerate bashing Jews or Homosexuals but if you read his Poker Fraud site it is all over the posts constantly. I even posted up some of the anti semitic comments from that site over here but it doesn't matter. I am just going to start bashing Martians and Plutonians. Nobody on Earth gets offended when I call them a Martian.

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Originally Posted by Chimp

Not exactly the same situation, but related.....a few years ago I was in Vegas and had a ton of food credit to use. I don’t remember exactly why. Maybe a 7stars trip that I was using before it expired. I was having dinner, by myself, and wondering how I was going to use up all of these food comps.
I noticed an elderly couple seated a few tables away from me. I decided to “pay it forward” and told the server that I wanted to pay their bill, anonymously. The server screwed up and told them it was me. Okay...whatever. They thanked me but I noticed that they hadn’t left a tip. I confirmed this with the server so I paid it.
Next day at lunch I decided to try again, as I still had plenty of comps. I was successful at the anonymity this time, with a table of two middle-aged women, but again, they did not leave a tip. So again, I did for them.
So after spending about $20 in tips and trying to do a nice thing and hopefully make someone’s day, I decided never again.

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Chimp!

Glad to see you back.

Still wish I got to meet you in person when you saw me playing at Rincon two years ago.

I think these people who no-tipped were probably just confused. You said, "Let me pay for this", and they probably didn't understand that you can't comp tips.

Very nice of you to go tip on their behalf, though (and to try to share your comps with strangers).

In the future, if you do this again, you might want to tell the stranger that your comp doesn't cover the tip, and if they promise to tip normally, you'll cover their bill with your comp.

I've also helped out strangers when I had comps I couldn't use. I got 8 comps for the High Roller wheel last year, but it turned out I didn't need 2 of them because kids were free (at the time, at least).

So I went through the line to ask who needed 2 free tickets. Laughably, almost everyone had already paid online. Finally I found a family of four, visiting from a foreign country, who had not paid yet. I told them they could ride for free because my comp would cover the two adults, and the two kids would be free. Not speaking very good English, they didn't understand, and thought I might be trying to hustle them. Finally I got it across to them that I was going to get them on the ride for free, and that I wanted nothing in return.

I did just that, and they profusely thanked me. Felt nice.

It's possible that they thought they thought a COMP meal meant you didn't have to pay ANYTHING. It's possible they thought tax and tip were also on the house.

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Originally Posted by monet

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

Wow, imagine that, a self obsessed selfish poker player. You call me a Troll for pointing it out and then tell a story verifying my accusations as truth. No wonder you can't get control of your sites. You are internally confused. Probably too much time at the poker tables. You need a vacation.

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Isn't it obvious that he enjoys that this forum is nothing but a troll site? The site was heading in somewhat of a direction to learn about gambling or advantage play but after he left Singer/Regins back the site took a horrible turn. Dan Druff said that the reason he let Rob come back was because traffic was low and he wanted to generate more traffic. So that tells us he doesn't care about the content of the forum but that it is generating traffic by all means necessary. I tried for about 450 posts or so (Disregarding Your Warnings) to be reasonable and tell everyone what I play and how I play it. Many times I am involved in something that is immoral or against policy but that is just how it is. I also tried to share my own personal life and going to hockey games and whatnot. It didn't really matter if anyone wanted to read all those long posts... they have the choice to read or not read but I put the stuff out there because I wanted to. I wanted to meet some like minded individuals or help players understand how to actually make some money inside of the Casino and I gave them the options of doing it in places that didn't care or they could choose to be a little more dishonest and I posted up ways of how to do it that way as well. So I gave the forum the choice of how to go about it. They could play at a thin edge and do everything on the up and up and still beat the games or they could choose another route. Personally I have no problem with the dishonest ways of life.

However the members and the site owner do not want honesty in posts about gambling. I am not sure what they want. Bill had said that these forums were for entertainment purposes only which makes more sense now. It appears that it is just a place to have fun and call each other names and troll and for the owners it is a place to generate traffic and some revenue. I didn't see one member say how great it was to let Rob Singer back into the Forums and he broke his own reinstatement rules from day one with no repercussions. As a matter of fact all you see is members griping to Dan to not allow Rob back at the Forum but to no avail. The only one with weight around here is Mendlebread. When he complains to Dan about whatever than Dan goes around and changes the rules or accommodates. Dan is becoming the Wiz of Odds going around and deleting posts and even whole threads lately.

Dan says that he will not tolerate bashing Jews or Homosexuals but if you read his Poker Fraud site it is all over the posts constantly. I even posted up some of the anti semitic comments from that site over here but it doesn't matter. I am just going to start bashing Martians and Plutonians. Nobody on Earth gets offended when I call them a Martian.

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I liked your posts when you first showed up here.

Lately you've mostly been trolling, and for whatever reason have decided to extend the trolling in my direction, as well.

You talk about revenue. What revenue? Where are the ads on this site?

I let Rob Singer back because people were talking about him, and I wanted to give him a chance to respond. I meant to ban him after that, but forgot, and by the time I remembered, I decided to give him another chance here, provided he doesn't chronically ruin threads like he did before.

By no means do I endorse his "system" or any of that other nonsense. I've made that clear in other threads, including one today.

I didn't delete any thread today. I censor very little here. Sometimes I will delete garbage postings in otherwise good threads. Other times I will move the garbage postings to their own thread.

My Pokerfraudalert site is a different type of forum. It's essentially an extension of the defunct neverwinpoker forums, which began back in 2004, and was popular due to its free speech atmosphere. For that reason, I allow two areas of the forum to operate that way, and the rest of the forum to be more serious and troll-free.

This site I envision as more of a serious place to discuss gambling, Las Vegas, casinos, etc.

I realize that there are a lot of people who don't like each other, as well as people with completely opposing viewpoints. I don't want to censor vigorous disagreement or arguments, but I also don't want it to become a troll fest.

That's why I've drawn the line at racial/religious/homosexual slurs, and I will sometimes clear out posts which have no other value besides trolling.

If you want to see this forum improve, return to your original plan of posting good/interesting material, and quit the trolling you're doing.

It's possible his guests thought a COMP MEAL meant that EVERYTHING was comped and tax and tip were on the house.

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Originally Posted by Tasha

It's possible his guests thought a COMP MEAL meant that EVERYTHING was comped and tax and tip were on the house.

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These were experienced players, so they were quite aware of how it all works. That's what surprised me so much about Kessler's story.

But even if they didn't realize it, they should have still done the math, realized that Kessler paid for the vast majority of their meal, and picked up the small overage & tip out of appreciation. They still got a helluva deal.

Dan, okay, good point. And besides it was only $12 tip, not $120 or $1,200. His acquaintances seem like Mooching Leeches expecting him to pay for the $12 tax and tip. SMH!

Isn't it common courtesy to at least offer to pay the tip and tax when someone takes you out to eat, especially on a comped meal?

A distinction needs to be made here....

If I told some people that I had a comp and we can use it when we eat together, that's different than inviting people to dinner "On me".

You're basically saying that you'll apply the comp and then we split the remaining balance.

For example, if the comp is $100 and the bill comes to $160, I'm expecting everyone to pitch in towards that $60+tip unless I offered to pay it all in the first place.

This kind of stuff happens all the time. A friend of mine had several $100 gift cards for Flemings Steak House. She would apply the gift card and we would split the rest.

As to this poker player and the $12, he probably wasn't very clear about the invitation. The people he invited to dinner probably thought it was all on him. In his mind however, he thought that the comp would be applied and the balance split. The distinction wasn't clear until the bill came.

If you think about it though, why should he pay anything at all unless he offered to pay the whole thing? It was his comp. If anyone should be eating for free, it's him. The rest of the people at the table are getting a good deal at $5 or $6 a person.

Also, if I'm invited to dinner by someone with a $100 comp and he says "It's on me", I'm not going to rack up the bill. I'll order accordingly to try and keep the bill near $100 as best I can. I'm not ordering the $60 steak and lobster. Even if there's a comp, it's rude to run up the bill just because someone offers to pay. That's the move of a classless person.

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Originally Posted by Gravy

A distinction needs to be made here....

If I told some people that I had a comp and we can use it when we eat together, that's different than inviting people to dinner "On me".

You're basically saying that you'll apply the comp and then we split the remaining balance.

For example, if the comp is $100 and the bill comes to $160, I'm expecting everyone to pitch in towards that $60+tip unless I offered to pay it all in the first place.

This kind of stuff happens all the time. A friend of mine had several $100 gift cards for Flemings Steak House. She would apply the gift card and we would split the rest.

As to this poker player and the $12, he probably wasn't very clear about the invitation. The people he invited to dinner probably thought it was all on him. In his mind however, he thought that the comp would be applied and the balance split. The distinction wasn't clear until the bill came.

If you think about it though, why should he pay anything at all unless he offered to pay the whole thing? It was his comp. If anyone should be eating for free, it's him. The rest of the people at the table are getting a good deal at $5 or $6 a person.

Also, if I'm invited to dinner by someone with a $100 comp and he says "It's on me", I'm not going to rack up the bill. I'll order accordingly to try and keep the bill near $100 as best I can. I'm not ordering the $60 steak and lobster. Even if there's a comp, it's rude to run up the bill just because someone offers to pay. That's the move of a classless person.

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I agree.

I actually eat a lot (anyone who's seen me on live poker streams can attest to that), so I can really run up a comp bill if I want to (though I don't drink, so that keeps it down somewhat).

When I'm eating on someone else's comp, I ask them at the beginning how much their comp is for. If it's very large (more than we can use), then I just go to town and order a ton of food.

Otherwise, I make sure not to order food which will put it "over", unless I'm ordering in proportion to everyone else there.

So if there are 3 people and a one of the other guy's comps is $150, I won't order more than $50 worth of food.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

I actually eat a lot (anyone who's seen me on live poker streams can attest to that)

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Cover blown... you're really Israeli Ron! Hahaha. J/K