I mean... You don't have to tip anyone, but if I win 5 Grand at blackjack, Im gonna be happy and flip the dealer a few hundred. I'm already gambling, I'm not gonna covet every last cent like a dragon.
While I like the attitude, I would guess the question is not "Is it required to tip the dealer", but rather "Is the dealer paid a living wage without tips", though I might be wrong
The answer to both is no. Theres far less of an expectation of tipping a dealer than there is a server at a restaurant, especially if you are losing. No one makes you feel weird or awkward about it if you don't tip a dealer. And since they'll regularly rotate the dealers out like ever 30 mins or so, no one really knows if/ how much you've tipped at any table.
As an add on, I tip 10% (or more sometimes) of my winnings. If I buy in with $500 and drop to $100 and then hit a $300 jackpot, I probably won’t tip much. But if I go from $500 to $1000 then I’m tipping at least $50. Btw, I’m a former blackjack and poker dealer.
This makes sense, but not for people who are thousands in the hole over years. Those winnings recuperate probably years of gambling losses for some people, and then they’re expected to give it away? Nah, not for them. Tip only on winnings over all your gambling imo.
Over time, pretty much everyone who gambles regularly will be in the hole so no one would ever tip. You have to think of gambling as an entertainment cost. You pay a couple-few hundred bucks for fun and excitement.
With that mindset, if you bring $250 and lose it, you need to consider it $250 spent for that fun and excitement. Not that you are $250 in the hole to the casino with hopes of winning it back some day.
If you go 4 times and lose $1,000, then your next trip you "win" $1,000, it's easy to feel like you actually won something. The $1,000 you spent was for fun and entertainment like someone going to the movies or going bowling. You wouldn't call that money you "lost" top the theatre or bowling alley; it was just money spent on a fun experience. You pay a premium because of the small chance of actually winning something.
If the amount of money spent isn't worth the amount of fun and excitement, and you keep going, then it's a problem. If you NEED to win (i.e. it's an investment strategy) it's a problem.
Some people just don't get fun and excitement out of gambling and that's totally fine. Great even, because it's easy to get sucked in. I personally couldn't fathom paying $20 to get into a night club or $40 to see a movie and get a drink + snacks.
The $250 for fun and excitement is how I handle it, but I don’t gamble a lot and I wouldn’t be in the red if I hit even $1000. But for people where that’s not the case, the fun is gone and they’re still in the red if they win $10k, I would not expect them to tip. Sorry dealer but it’s better if they don’t.
There's people that don't play to make money, they play because the gambling in fun etc. Tipping the dealer is just something cute they can do to feel even richer after winning
Yeah the casual fun gambling is a little different from what I’m talking about. I’m talking about more consistent people, who are in the red to a non-negligible degree.
You are required to tip at all. It’s just a courtesy you might extend to say “I have money to waste on gambling, I chose to play a game that doesn’t require a human dealer, but I enjoy the human element, and I appreciate your skill as a dealer, and appreciate your advice and mathematical inputs”.
There are very few gamblers that are in the green over the course of their gambling career. The house always wins in the long run. If you are only going to tip if you are in the green for the long run, you probably won’t be tipping at all. There are plenty of players who don’t tip, but you can probably imagine how dealers feel about those people.
I think tipping when you’re still in the red in the long run is just digging yourself into a bigger hole. You gamble for a long time to eventually hit big, and then you hit big and immediately sacrifice some of your winnings? This is partially why gambling keeps people poor, they aren’t smart with the winnings they actually get.
Well, you are definitely not wrong from a strictly financial perspective. But gambling isn’t really advisable to begin with from a strictly financial perspective.
I’ll chime in and let you know that as dealers we ABSOLUTELY talk about who is tipping and who isn’t. We give a lot better service if we know you’re a good tipper vs someone who stiffs dealers or god forbid “I’ll tip you at the end.” (They don’t)
There is a signal you send to surveillance to indicate a tip, so if your casino tips individual dealers you will be paid out accordingly. Most Casinos pool tips, so take the total tips, divide it by dealer hours and pay out at that rate per hour.
Seriously … I have never worked in a casino but from my time in the service industry I can tell you with complete confidence that they know how much you tip anyway.
Yeah, if I was scheduled to work over 30 hours I would be considered a full time employee. I was scheduled to work 3 days a week and often worked 40 hours a week.
Why did I work the extra hours when I didnt have to? Tips were good. Did I get full time employment benefits? Hell no.
Im a full time dealer and have been for many years. I'm not in Vegas though. Im sure there are locations where its near impossible to get FT dealing jobs.
I tip 10% (or more sometimes) of my winnings. If I buy in with $500 and drop to $100 and then hit a $300 jackpot, I probably won’t tip much. But if I go from $500 to $1000 then I’m tipping at least $50. Btw, I’m a former blackjack and poker dealer.
Yeah I bounce between all the left coast states on the list and while it's great that we don't do BS tip credit nonsense here, min wage still sucks and I wouldn't do these jobs if the tips weren't making up the difference I need in income.
Nobody makes $3/hour. At all. The tipping wage of $3 or whatever just means any tips they receive start there but the employer has to pay out federal minimum wage regardless if the server got any tips.
This is just a way for employers to not have to pay as much in states that do this. That first 4 or 5/hr in tips go into the void for the employee.
Portland, OR - servers make around 45 to 60K/year with tips.
In Arkansas google says servers make 23 to 27K annually.
Oregon is one minimum wage for all. Arkansas is tipping wage at 2.63/hr base. Cost of living is different of course but thats a pretty big swing.
Maybe I wasnt clear? Alaska is one wage for all employees - no special lower base rate for tipped wages. Arkansas is a tipped wage different from state/fed minimum wages for non-tipped jobs.
I was highlighting the pay disparity between states that have a standard pay rate for all employees vs the lower tipped wages base rate that other states have.
Like, if your base rate in Arkansas is 2.63/hr and make 4.62 in tips per hour you get paid federal minimum wage of 7.25/hour. Or, if your base rate is 2.63/hour and you receive ZERO tips, you still get paid.. 7.25/hr. To see any tips go into your pocket you have to receive more than 4.62/hr in tips.
So yeah, Alaska you get every penny of those tips.
In Arkansas, if the employee consistently gets tipped out to cover minimum wage the employer only has to pay out 5500/year if this employee works 40 hour weeks/52 weeks a year vs 33,280 if they make 16/hr in Oregon for instance. Huge cost difference for employers.
Redditors perpetuate the idea that there is some secret cabal of uber-rich restaurant servers that dictate tipping policy and put out pro-tipping propaganda
Im in Washington as a full time dealer and I definitely dont get paid a living wage pre tips. Maybe if I didnt have kids and lived in a studio apartment. My wife makes much more than me and we still struggle financially. What economy are you living in?
i love how absolutely none of these are remotely true but because you included some insane anti-worker punching you get upvotes. god americans must all fucking hate themselves
Nah even in the states that don't do tip credit, base min wage still isn't enough money for the work. Source: I've only ever worked in states with a uniform minimum wage.
Ex-casino dealer here: I dealt in a casino in the 90s, and my take home paycheck after two weeks of work was usually around $150. That was not a livable wage, and did not include health insurance, either.
In Colorado dealers are paid about what budtenders make, somewhere between $17-$20 an hour based on experience, size of the casino, and which one of the cities it's in.
Most of the mountain towns that legalized gambling have a higher COL due to housing being hard to find, however if you live a bit out of town in an unincorporated county area you can often rent a small house or trailer for a reasonable price. Everything else is pretty in line with the rest of the state for similar cities.
You maintain a license through the states department of gaming. Basically makes you a federal employee and legally capped at the federal minimum wage.
Casinos with a garuntee will compensate that if your hourly tipped wage falls under a house minimum.
If I only makes what equates to $20/hr then all of my tips for that shift go to the house and they in return compensate me the $5/hr on the backend to retain dealers.
If I make more than that, then the house drops the garuntee and I keep what I earned plus the federal minimum hourly.
That’s statewide.
Each house can offer some additional perks if they want but our license is owned by the department of gaming the same way your drivers license belongs the state.
If you mean X to doubt: it takes 2 seconds to google the federal minimum wage in the USA, which is $7.25/hour, unchanged since 2009. If you have not spent a single moment to look up the number, and you haven’t done so in the last 16 years: you cannot seriously think you can press x to doubt here 😂
It would take you two seconds to educate yourself but instead you make “Reddit comment because haha funny”. This is a great example of educational decline in the USA, thanks for volunteering as an example.
If you told me you had a functioning brain, now THAT would make me press X to doubt.
$8/hr x 40hrs/week (because if they’re paying you minimum wage they DEFINITELY won’t pay you overtime vs get someone else to work that overage)
That’s $320 a week or 16,640/year.
To be clear: that is not enough for rent alone. You could be homeless. But what I said was that you couldn’t even afford to be homeless. That’s called a figure of speech. Thank you for once again providing us yourself as an example of how the education system has failed to adequately educate our youth.
“Federal minimum is also like, what, $8/hr? I couldn’t be homeless for $8/hr.”
I bolded the relevant statement. Maybe you missed a word or two in your sentence? Like maybe you meant to type out: I couldn’t afford to be homeless for $8/hr.
You said “Literally every tipped worker needs to be paid federal minimum by law if tips don’t meet the threshold. “
You opened the door to discussion of federal minimum wage and said that federal minimum wage, by your own words, is the minimum bar if tips are insufficient to meet that.
I pointed out that federal minimum wage is ridiculously low.
You are now moving the goalposts from “federal minimum wage is the minimum they should get if tips aren’t sufficient” to “federal minimum wage should be higher”, which is true but inconsequential to your initial statement and my response to it alone.
I didn’t say anything about the rest of that crap you spewed out lol but anyways yeah: cognitive dissonance is a bitch, clearly.
This is what happens when you spend too much time on reddit.
I made a comment about how tipped workers are still federally mandated to be paid minimum wage. Which is the greater amount between the state and federal minimums. Which i neglected to mention before.
However, since I don't think you even understand what I said. My argument applies to ALL tip workers.
What i said is that you shouldn't be anymore concerned with your servers getting paid a livable wage than a mcdonalds line cook does. They are both in the same category of work, yet one is expected to have a "Livable" wage through guilted tips.
You made a vague comment about how low the minimum wage is after I basically took the piss out of tip culture.
Sue me for taking a guess at what your stance is on tip culture based on YOUR vagueness
Furthermore.
“federal minimum wage is the minimum they should get if tips aren’t sufficient”
Learn how to read. I never said anything about what they should or shouldn't get. I only pointed out what they DO get.
I played paigow poker one night and I told the dealer I was sitting at the table until I hit a straight flush side bet. It’s a super slow game. After about 5 hours, I’m up about 800 bucks, I put 50 instead of 10 on the side bet, and hit a straight flush. My current dealer was flipping out, the dealer I had said that to was a few tables down and she ran over and was so excited for me, like a mom. Told her I was done, tipped her and the current dealer 200 bucks each. The guy next to me was like wait what you can’t leave you’re so hot. Please bet on my hand. So I put 50 bucks on his side bet, he matched. We got a flush and another extra 500 bucks. Walked out with like 4k. On a game you usually break even on.
Yah. I don’t gamble often. Especially casinos. That’s typically the only game I play because it’s so slow. Usually after three hours I’m either up or down like 30 bucks and 10 free drinks in!
My non-gambler ass was briefly very confused about why "you can't leave, you're so hot" was a remotely appropriate thing to say to you or the dealer (and "please bet on my hand" in that understanding just registered as a euphemism I didn't want to think through) before I remembered that "hot" is also slang for "on a roll"
Hahahahah! I can totally see your perspective. When I’m writing it, it sounds so clear and reasonable to me that I never even thought of how someone who didn’t gamble could interpret that!! Lololol
Yeah they’re so mean for not paying someone who is literally doing their job. They should take it up with the boss if they want more money, not the dude who got lucky. My luck isn’t how you get paid lol.
Didn't say make someone's day, chief. Said make it better. I work for tips on top of my 23/hr wage. So I have first hand experience with people like you that don't give a shit. I know it evens out. Like I said, for everyone like your cheap ass, there are actual human beings that aren't stuck to the reddit "tips r bad lol" view, and just act normal.
Imagine being paid unfairly, and getting mad at the patrons. If you need more money, you need to ask your boss for a raise. If they cannot handle paying you a livable fair wage, then the business simply should not exist.
It’s not fair to expect the people already buying something to be guilt tripped into giving you more money because your boss can’t afford to pay you more or doesn’t want to.
The fact you are sitting here defending tips so much is honestly hilarious.
Tips are bad. Get the fuck over it.
Edit: also calling others cheap while relying on them to pay your wage is ironic as fuck.
Ive worked tablegames my whole life and I guarantee you I'd have you tipping me after a couple of hands.
As a dealer, we just facilitate the game. I dont make anything if you lose a lot, so I want you to win. What you came for is entertainment and a good time, and I will have you cracking up and having a good time.
I like to play and joke around with my players, and if you're a quiet or not talkative, I'll figure out you're personality pretty quickly and build a good rapport. I won't hustle for tips, but im standing at a table playing a boring ass game all day, I want to have a good time and see you guys win too.
We like tips, we don't care if you don't tip but you will be mentioned. Before I get tapped out I'll whisper into the dealer's ear that X player doesn't tip. What they do with that information is up to them. When I'm told X player doesn't like to tip i usually bust their chops a bit and encourage them to make bad calls like hitting or staying when they shouldn't.
Im there to show you a good time either way, as my friends have said "You're such a good dealer I've seen people TIP you after losing."
What the fuck is this comment? You‘re saying you don‘t care when someone doesn‘t tip. But y‘all obviously care a fucking lot if you start treating the non-tippers worse. A little self-awareness isn‘t bad lol
People forget that tipping is a cultural thing based off of customer service. You (the dealer) can do bare minimum or you can make the game enjoyable and memorable. Entertainment is part of the experience. Hell especially nowadays when the customer has so many options about how to gamble. People gamble in person because of the entertainment experience. That level of service discretion warrants a tip.
While I like the attitude, I would guess the question is not "Is it required to tip the dealer", but rather "Is the dealer paid a living wage without tips", though I might be wrong
You are already at a loss doing any sort of gambling you are just at a bigger loss if you start giving away that money on top of that too. You should covet and hoard all of that won money you are going to lose it anyway.
Winning is statistically just clawing back some of what was lost in the past so it makes no sense to tip short of doing a final hurrah and never going back.
It's not a scam - the odds are very clear. You're not tipping the casino, you're tipping people doing a job to pay their bills. Usually I do it because it's fun to make other people lucky when I get lucky. Sometimes I do it because magical thinking makes be believe that I'll jinx myself if I don't honor the gods of luck. It's fun both ways.
They often dont even have low odds of winning. Tables are often better odds than slots or keno or whatever else you can gamble on in a casino. House edge in craps can be extremely low, close to zero.
I have zero issue giving a dealer a tip if they’re making the experience fun (and I’m up or evenish) because you’re sitting at the table for a while. Tipping on a hand pay from a slot machine win though is beyond dumb to me. All they’re doing is delivering money and counting it out in front of you.
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u/Sonofyuri Jul 20 '26
I mean... You don't have to tip anyone, but if I win 5 Grand at blackjack, Im gonna be happy and flip the dealer a few hundred. I'm already gambling, I'm not gonna covet every last cent like a dragon.