Kevin made an interesting post to the comments section of a recent post:

The rise in popularity is great for casinos and for poker in general, but it's not great for the dealers! Our poker room has more than doubled in players/games/hours played in the last year but our toke rate has nearly been cut in half. To new players: you don't see it on tv or during tournaments (although it's definitely appreciated afterwards!) but you can occasionally toke the dealer.

This was news to me -- I suppose it makes some sense, but I hadn't thought that the rise in poker's popularity would see the toke rate drop to the level of half what it was before.

So please, poker players -- try to educate the newbies at your table on the etiquette of tipping poker dealers. Kevin makes it a good point that it's never shown or mentioned on the TV tournament broadcasts.

I think the regional differences in tip stucture is interesting. In MN, where I mostly play, the average tip is $1 for a pot in a 2/4, 3/6 or 4/8 game, with bigger pots maybe getting an extra buck or two, to $2 in the 6/12 and 8/16 games, where again bigger pots will cause bigger tips. In the 15/30 game $5 tips are common. In general the tip is based on the chip denomination.

My experience everywhere else I have played (Indiana, Vegas, LA) is that no matter the level or size of the pot the tip is fifty cents.

Don't know why that is.

Posted by: john on December 12, 2003 06:41 PM

My experience with 3/6 - 10/20 is that $1 is a common tip with $2 for bigger pots. I only see $0.50 as a tip for a very small pot. I've only played 15/30 once and $1 - $5 was common.

My first time playing in a casino I knew abut tipping but was taking in too much to remember to do it. Thankfully the guy next to me would remind me every time I forgot to tip (when I sat down I announced my newbie status and solicited help). I think many newbies just don't remember to tip but don't mind the reminder.

I recently got the largest split of a Mirage tournament (around $3000). When I tipped about $150 the manager seemed genuinely surprised despite the fact that the previous person he paid had tipped. I think he pegged me for a newbie and just didn't expect anything.

The rule of thumb for tipping in tournamnets that is use is 6%.

I don't really approve of the way we do tipping for dealers or most services. 15% to the waiter is silly. My food should simply cost 10% more, the waiter should be paid more, and then I should tip 0-10%. At our current 15% level, leaving no tip has serious impact on that waiter's salary and if the service was that bad I should be talking to the manager about it. I feel the samw way about dealers. When I win a normal pot I feel obligated to tip $1. That's just silly. That's not a tip.. that's a fixed cost. I'd rather pay that cost upfront (with rake or whatever) and save tipping for extraordinary circumstances.

Posted by: Dave on January 8, 2004 12:31 PM

dealers tips are severely cut here too!the new players are not tipping,often even after a reminder from another player.they just follow the t.v. example by not tipping not to mention slowing the game down by half as they want to act like their favorite poker stars.

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