Tipping Dealers : generous is selfish, selfish is idiocy

I'm a consistent tipper, but I almost never overtip (just so you know my bias). Many people wonder what the right balance of tipping is. I'm not entirely sure what the answer is but I do have a strong idea of what the pertinent factors are.

The first question is: should i tip?

First thing to consider is that dealers make minimum wage and derive the majority of their income from tipping. If casinos were to continued paying dealers minimum wage, there would be no more quality dealers left in the world as their skills could probably be better utilized elsewhere. Amongst the things a dealer must do well is keep track of the pot size, keep track of the players, make sure everyone puts the right and correct amount into the pot, prevent cheating and collusion, pull the stacks into the pot, recognize the best hand, enforce the rules, and be extremely efficient and courteous. These are highly important to a well run game. So the answer is if you don't tip quality dealers, you lose quality dealers and the game becomes poorly run.

Consequently, you should make every effort not to tip a poor dealer. An experienced dealer that doesn't do their job deserves to find another job that they appreciate more and do better in. Dealers that fail to do their job cost ALL of the players at the table money as well as the casino. The sooner they find another occupation, the more likely all the players at the casino will benefit, as well as the winning poker player.

Second Question: How much should you tip?

Here are my general guidelines:

In general, you should tip more for better service. In general, you should tip a bit more for bigger pots since those pots require more work and time. So the question is, how much do you need to tip to keep good dealers in business? If you were a good dealer, would $10 a hour suffice? Would $20? would $30 an hr suffice? My opinion is that a good dealer should make at least close to what a good assistant would make. That is about $30-40K a year (Vegas dealers make about 55k/yr. I don't know what CA dealers make) They should make less than say a consultant a big firm which is about 60k. So at 40k a year working 48 weeks per year and working 40 hours per week, a dealer would be generating $20/hr. I think that's fair and thats an amount that keeps a lot of quality dealers on the workfoce. Since they are paid $7.50/hr by casino, they would have to generate $12.5/ hr in tips to make $40k a year. Typically a dealer can deal on average 25 hands/hour. Most patrons tip at least a dollar each pot, but often more while few tip nothing.

Now that we know how valuable a dealer is to the game, the other side of the equation is how much can you tip to still stay in business? If you tip too much, you cut significantly into your profits and become a losing player. Losing players cannot stay in business and therefore drop out of the poker economy and can no longer pay money to the casino which pays these dealers and also can no longer contribute tips to dealers. In other words, being too generous is disastrous for dealers as well as for your personal bankroll. Another point is some players are so good they can afford to overtip, but in that case they aren't properly compensated for their huge investment in time, money, and effort which means being a pro poker player becomes a less desirable for the highly skilled which then results in that person finding a new occupation that compensates properly for that person's highly desirous intellect. (this is just an economical point of view - some ppl love poker and would do it even regardless of money)

Given these variables, there is some equilibrium point in which you tip quality dealers that in term help you maximize your earn which means you can afford to tip them more. A player must be able to beat the game, beat the variance, beat the rake/drop, and still show considerable profits for their time. The poker player's time must be compensated for all the time they used to gain neccessary experience, build a bankroll, or read dozens of educational books.

Before you think of being too "generous" :

The consequence of tipping above the equilibrium point is that you make less and dealers make less because you now drop out of the poker economy and are unable to contribute to the poker economy.

So before you think of being selfish and tipping nothing:

The consequence of tipping below the equilibrium point is that dealers make less, drop out of dealing and are replaced by bad dealers which in turn costs you money.