Tipping

With gambling come numerous occasions when one might be expected to tip: a big winning bet at a table game, a jackpot on a slot or video poker machine, a win in a drawing. Last year I tipped thousands of dollars against an overall income that wasn't satisfactory, so I have begun to rethink my tipping policies.

The first question concerning tipping in any situation is whether to tip at all. I have a friend who plays video poker at high stakes, meaning he gets lots of hand pays (jackpots of $1,200 or more, which require the casino to issue tax forms). His policy is never to tip the employees who pay him. His rationale is that the casino should pay these people an adequate salary and that by creating an expectation that they be tipped, the casino is shifting this responsibility onto its customers. He also believes that most casino employees do not spend the tips they receive wisely. My friend is a successful businessman who truly tries to get to know many casino employees personally and help them in many ways, including with financial advice. He believes that this is more valuable than any tips he might give them.

There is a lot to be said for this point of view. However, I do not feel comfortable in most situations involving a hand pay not tipping at all. (If the service is truly terrible, I will not tip and I will tell the employees why.) The question then becomes how much to tip.

When I started playing video poker, I read in a book that 1 percent was a standard tip for a hand pay. For a while, when I was playing for quarters and dollars, this seemed to work pretty well. My tip on a dollar royal of $4,000 was $40, and that was my maximum exposure, except for the rare progressive. Now that I am often playing for higher stakes, the 1 percent rule doesn't seem to make sense. In $5 video poker, a royal pays $20,000, but the work involved in paying it is exactly the same as for a $4,000 royal. I did tip $200 on my first couple of $20,000 royals but have come to believe that $100 is a very generous tip for the amount of work involved.

Another way to avoid overtipping to is to keep in mind what the employee's job is worth. I have seen blackjack players put up tips in form of dealer bets of $25 on every hand they play; assuming a typical win rate of slightly less than half, that means the dealer is getting about $12 a hand, or $720 an hour during a slow game of 60 hands an hour. Is any dealer worth as much as a top-notch lawyer or CPA? I don't think so. Dealing is a job that requires about two weeks of training. Getting a job on the Strip or in one of the better locals' places usually requires some experience, and a dealer should have some personality and customer-relations skills. In most settings today, these qualifications would bring maybe $12 to $15 an hour at most. Most dealers probably make more than that, and at the swankiest places on the Strip, they make more than $100,000 a year. This is not a compensation level I feel any responsibility to support.

What does this mean in practical terms? To me, it's just one factor to keep in mind in deciding how much to tip a dealer. Others include how much I'm betting, whether I'm winning or losing (and by how much) and the quality of the service being provided. One thing I have learned as a blackjack player is not to over-tip on early wins, which sometimes disappear by the end of a session. You can always throw a couple of chips at the dealer as you leave; but you can't ask for your tips back after a string a losing hands wipes you out.

The traditional idea behind tipping casino employees is that the lucky gambler who wins shows his generosity by sharing his good fortune. This model has some validity in the case of a tourist who comes to Vegas with a few hundred bucks, hits for thousands, and goes home until his next trip, in six months or a year or two. For the local, regular gambler, this model has a lot less validity. Gambling results can usually be graphed as a series of peaks separated by long valleys. If a gambler is lucky, these will more or less even out in the long run. Even for professionals, big wins usually consist mostly or recouping losses, past and future. They do not really represent a windfall. I think many employees at locals casinos understand this and are happy with modest tips that add up over time.

There are, however, empoyees who feel entitled to a share of any customers' win. This is wrong for several reasons: 1. Tipping, by its very nature, is discretionary; 2. Employees do not share customers' losses, and in many if not most cases don't know how much the customer has lost before his big "win"; and 3. Emplyees don't have any of their own money in the game.

I once heard an interview on the radio with a cocktail waitress who felt she was entltled to a share of any of her customers' wins, including whenever they hit a four-of-a-kind. I found this attitude disgusting. If she wants to enjoy gambling wins, there's an easy way to do that -- gamble, and also suffer the losses. A cocktail waitress is entitled to be paid for bringing drinks, which is generally worth one or a a few dollars a drink. If she's been pleasant and the service has been good, a customer might give her something extra out a jackpot, but that to me is the exception, not the rule.

Maybe I'm overthinking this topic, but I do believe it is important to treat casino employees fairly but also to be fair to myself. Guidelines can be helpful in determing how much to tip, but in reality, eash situation is different, and judgment is alwys required.

A final thought: Being nice to casino employees may in the long run count for a lot more than tips. Most tips are pooled, so the effect of a big tip on any individual is not that great. A combination of reasonable tips and simple friendliness is probably the best formula for being welcomed and treated well.