I Am Too Cheap To Tip Dealers

I Am Too Cheap To Tip Dealers.

Don't get me wrong. I tip waiters and waitresses, I tip valet car
staff, I even tip the guy who mows my lawn. But when it comes to
tipping dealers, I have severely reduced my tips, and I now tip only
when I am ahead of the game (with some exceptions as noted below).

Tipping poker dealers is a really bad deal, once you start adding up
the cost. Let's say you tip about five percent of each pot you win.
That's an enormous price, considering that your cost of winning that
one pot is the dollar amount of lost bets (including blinds) that you
make prior to winning that pot.

One of the reasons I play mostly online nowadays is that the cost of
tipping is eliminated altogether. (Also, the rake is about half of a
b&m game.) That's a significant increase in profit.

I have the utmost regard for those poker dealers who are really good,
who keep control of the table, and who make the experience more
pleasant. I never stiff these guys and gals, even when I am behind.
They should get paid more.

But most dealers are not that good. My main complaint is about
dealers that allow players (not in the hand) to get away with talking
about a hand during play that may harm an active player. But plenty
of dealers are just mediocre, and do not earn their $30 plus/hour
tips.

In the end, the decision is financial. I'll pay value for value
received. But as I reevaluate my profit/loss patterns in the game, I
am becoming increasingly aware that dealer tips can be very expensive
over the long haul.

Psychologically, it is difficult to withhold tips to which dealers
feel entitled, but I'm overcoming that. Call me greedy, but I think
that the whole dealer-tipping thing is based on the invalid concept
that a won poker pot is "free money" to the winner. It's not. When
you add up the overhead and opportunity costs, there is a lot of
investment involved in that end-of-month withdrawal from the poker
account. And of course, when you have a losing month, every dollar in
tips only adds to the losses.

On Apr 4 2008 1:57 PM, Lute wrote:

> I Am Too Cheap To Tip Dealers.
>
> Don't get me wrong. I tip waiters and waitresses, I tip valet car
> staff, I even tip the guy who mows my lawn. But when it comes to
> tipping dealers, I have severely reduced my tips, and I now tip only
> when I am ahead of the game (with some exceptions as noted below).
>
> Tipping poker dealers is a really bad deal, once you start adding up
> the cost. Let's say you tip about five percent of each pot you win.
> That's an enormous price, considering that your cost of winning that
> one pot is the dollar amount of lost bets (including blinds) that you
> make prior to winning that pot.
>
> One of the reasons I play mostly online nowadays is that the cost of
> tipping is eliminated altogether. (Also, the rake is about half of a
> b&m game.) That's a significant increase in profit.
>
> I have the utmost regard for those poker dealers who are really good,
> who keep control of the table, and who make the experience more
> pleasant. I never stiff these guys and gals, even when I am behind.
> They should get paid more.
>
> But most dealers are not that good. My main complaint is about
> dealers that allow players (not in the hand) to get away with talking
> about a hand during play that may harm an active player. But plenty
> of dealers are just mediocre, and do not earn their $30 plus/hour
> tips.
>
> In the end, the decision is financial. I'll pay value for value
> received. But as I reevaluate my profit/loss patterns in the game, I
> am becoming increasingly aware that dealer tips can be very expensive
> over the long haul.
>
> Psychologically, it is difficult to withhold tips to which dealers
> feel entitled, but I'm overcoming that. Call me greedy, but I think
> that the whole dealer-tipping thing is based on the invalid concept
> that a won poker pot is "free money" to the winner. It's not. When
> you add up the overhead and opportunity costs, there is a lot of
> investment involved in that end-of-month withdrawal from the poker
> account. And of course, when you have a losing month, every dollar in
> tips only adds to the losses.

You're one cheap son of a bitch. $1 a winning pot isn't gonna break you.
If you were at my table I'd have no problem telling you how cheap you are
to your face. I berate the players who don't tip and will always do it til
one of them decides to kick my ass.

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