He sort of already did so. He said he averages $16.50 per shoe and tips 5%. I guess that would be 82 cents per shoe.Originally Posted by Freightman
At these levels, I guess you could do something like tip 50 cents per blackjack, which would average about 2 per shoe, but again, it has been my experience that these levels are just not appreciated. You are really better off not tipping.
I would like to hear his tipping strategy, because like you, I figure he is tipping more than he realizes.
Thinking about this 5% amount mentioned and thinking about my own play. I have EV of $80k. 5% would be $4000 in tips....for what? As I stated in my earlier post, I am not looking for anything in return, so it just amounts to a casino tax. I am paying the dealer for doing his/her job. I don't get that. Maybe that's because I am NOT there for entertainment purposes and don't appreciate a chatting dealer.
But anyway, lets say, I cave to social pressure and tip $4000 a year. That's a dollar every 20 rounds. Maybe I could tip a dollar after every blackjack, that amounts to just about 1 in 20 hands. So, I tip $1 after blackjacks regardless of whether I have $25 (minimum) wager out or $400 max out. Yeah....$1 tip on a $400 blackjack, will get me laughed and ridiculed right off the table. As I said, you are better off not tipping at all at this level.
I look at it as win rate in dollars per EV. I go into the casino to generate as high an EV as possible. It is not high because I play a lot of shoes. Many shoes are negative EV. If I play them my EV is worse than if I didn't play them. The work in Don's epic book Blackjack Attack edition 3 tells you what you need to know to help maximize your EV in any given time. Other factors are game speed and crowding.
This is incorrect. You play more shoes in any number of total rounds at a crowded table but you play far fewer shoes in any given time frame. Win rate by time rather than shoe would have you avoiding what you seem to think is valuable.
I think the answer is already implied. Heads up I can play a shoe in 5-10 minutes and get 52 rounds out of each shoe. At a crowded table a shoe takes 20 minutes or more and I will get 26 or less rounds in. How would counting shoes be any kind of indicator of what happened?
If you count EV by how many of each bet size you make times the EV for each bet size you get the EV for you time spent. This is what you are trying to maximize. If you look at the affect on EV of each bet size made you can see what the most effective way of generating the most EV is.
Disagree, because you will NEVER tip enough to make a dealer happy.friggin' non-tippers. making us all look bad.
Twice, I hit quads at MS (high 4 figure win) and tipped a black chip. It got back to me later through another player at the table that both dealers thought the black chip tip was cheap and insulting.
KJ,
Very well stated (as I would expect). I definitely see your point and would agree that a hit and run style is less conducive to tipping.
Your post reinforces my point that each of us has our own style and there is no "one size fits all" approach that will work for everyone.
With my style, there are certainly situations when I do not tip. However, if it can reduce the heat under certain conditions, I have no problem with it.
I had a dealer tell me my tip on hit a big payoff was cheap. I replied I am glad she told me so that I wouldn't tip what I think is generous but is unappreciated. I would now tip a tip size that we could both agree on how generous it was. Then I said the only tip size I can think of that we can both agree on how generous it is is a tip of $0. I didn't tip her again.
I would think the you would have an equivalent measure of winrate (say compared to EV/100R or EV/hr), however sometimes averages that you'd think would be equivalent (that is either the same or convertible) are counter-intuitively not. Perhaps how you calculate it affects variance. Anyways, I'm just speculating about possible issues. My understanding of stats needs brushing up or even further development if I were to comment on the fact of the matter.
Here is the reasoning behind my own tipping policy (or lack there of).
1.) I have tipped in the past and often felt it was unappreciated. The problem is that I want to tip a small, very small percent of my EV. At my midlevel green to mid black level that's a couple dollars for my short session. When the count sours and I have my max bet out of four or five hundred, a couple white chips, even a red chip is looked down and unappreciated. It really is. You are better off not tipping. The incident that I like to tell is when I tipped two bucks, the dealer responded "Thanks, now I can buy a newspaper".
2.) When I tip for service, I like to tip the person who provided that service that I want to acknowledge, not tip into a pool that will be divided among people I want to tip as well as maybe some rude, unhelpful dealers that I specifically don't want to tip. I tip the taxi driver, not the taxi drivers association for them to split among drivers.
3.) Getting a little something for your tip. Many players use their tips as a method to get something like better penetration. I know I am an anomaly, in that I am not interested in that. To me that borders on bribery and collusion. You are asking for and if not asking for, have an understanding to get something otherwise not offered in exchange for your tip. That is technically bribery and collusion. I am not looking for anything special. I seek out certain conditions (penetration) and if you offer it, I will play, if not, I play somewhere else. I am not interested in bribing you to get it. I am not a "get the money at any cost guy". I want it on my terms. I have to be comfortable with my actions.
4.) And somewhat related to #3, some players tip, to sort of buy the silence of the dealer, hoping he/she will not rat you out. This too, sort of borders on that bribery situation, but I have engaged. I have engaged in it and more than once, thinking I had 'bought' a little silence from the dealer, heard with my own ears, the dealer still rat me out to the pit as he went on break. I am sure it happened much more often that I didn't hear.
5.) I play short sessions. It isn't like I am sitting there for hours as some players do, looking for a friendly environment. I am in and out in minutes. I am not looking for nor asking for anything special. Just do your job and deal me a fair game. And for that I hope your employer pays you what you are worth.
Let me conclude by saying that I don't feel like I am stiffing the dealer by not tipping, as I would a waiter, waitress, bartender. I don't view the dealer as providing a personal service like waiter, waitress, bartender, bell hop or barber. I think of it more as a menial customer service type job, like a cashier at CVS and I don't tip the cashier at CVS.
Let me just say that I didn't meant to turn this into a whole big thing here. I was just breaking your balls a little bit. If you don't want to tip, whatever.
Let me conclude by saying that I don't feel like I am stiffing the dealer by not tipping, as I would a waiter, waitress, bartender. I don't view the dealer as providing a personal service like waiter, waitress, bartender, bell hop or barber. I think of it more as a menial customer service type job, like a cashier at CVS and I don't tip the cashier at CVS.
but let me also say this...
A fast, competent dealer who delivers you the cards and chips that result in the size of your wallet increasing is a service worthy of a couple bucks tip. Your "lousy dollar" might not be lauded as the most generous donation of the year, but that's not the point. You're giving what you can afford to give as a sign of appreciation of a job well done.
You are not a casino customer, so I don't know why you would compare what the dealer is doing for you as "customer service". Generally speaking, customer service people deal with people who are paying for something. By your analogy, essentially what you're doing is regularly entering a CVS, pulling a "menial" cashier away from his assignment and reassigning him to work for you for absolutely no additional compensation. I mean after all, you're still INSIDE the CVS... It should be their responsibility to pay him, not yours. Right?
I have always found tipping an interesting phenomena because it is a little foreign to me. I have tipped before but in many countries around the world, the tipping culture is quite different. There are two main aspects of tipping in America that bother me. First, it is used to subsidize wages that the employers should be offering, thus builds and re-enforces the expectation that one should tip. Second, with the expectation, tipping has become viewed less as a courtesy and more of an entitlement.
Since the ploppy mentality is so pervasive, it affects a large percentage of dealers as well. A player just won a $500 hand? It's like he got a free bonus, that's free money! How cheap of him to only give me 0.2% to 5% of his free money.
I know that. It's all good. In all the tipping threads I have participated in (second only to count debate threads), I have never fully laid out my reasoning for my position on tipping, so since I am home today wasting time, waiting for a service call (repairman, not sex) I thought I would do so.
I believe I am a customer of the casino. The casino is in the gaming or gambling business. I gamble. I just do so, thinking a little bit, playing a strategy that gives me a slight, completely legal, advantage as opposed to a slight disadvantage that most players play with.
I also at times provide a service for the casinos of opening tables. We all know a dealer can be standing there by himself for 30 minutes, but as soon as one player sits down, the table fills up. I do this a lot, hoping to play heads up but in a matter of 2 or 3 rounds not doing so. It wasn't that long ago that casinos used to employ and pay people (shills) to do just this. So my presence is benefiting them.
In addition, players keep the dealer employed. Whether the player is winning or losing is irrelevant. My presence contributes to people being employed.
In short, I am a customer of the casinos. Maybe not the drunk stupid people they target and would like to have as their customers, but I am a customer.
Last edited by KJ; 06-24-2015 at 02:55 PM. Reason: spelling
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