Another thread was on the verge of veering off into a discussion of tipping overall, and I'd be very surprised if this topic hasn't been covered in the past.
I have the luxury of having a very first-hand view of tips, while having no skin in the game. Sure, a bigger paycheck is better than a smaller one, but I genuinely don't need the money and it all goes into a retirement account. But there are people in my casino who - gasp - are doing this to pay their bills. (There are at least three of us retired dealers on swing shift, and there might be more on day shift.)
It's frustrating to have to - as Blanche DuBois said - "depend on the kindness of strangers." In many contexts there is something called the 80/20 rule, that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your salesman/customers/products. We get more like 90% of our tips from 10% of our players.
It's also a little weird to have a game where there's no way the house could afford to deal the game and pay the dealers a decent wage based on the economics of the game alone. Blackjack isn't a hard game to master, and with perfect basic strategy the house advantage is around 0.6%. (I've done some research that says it might be more like 0.4%, but I never rely on my calculations where they contradict widely researched computations by others.) Of course many players refuse to adhere to basic strategy. I affirmatively try to help players; when a new player sits down I tell them "When I say 'Are you sure?' it's the same as if I said 'It's your money, it's your decision, but the play you're making is not the correct 'book' play." I don't know how many other dealers do this, or even know correct strategy. It's not exactly a job requirement for dealing the way that, for example, it's a job requirement to never ever bend over to pick something up (you call your floor supervisor) or even clear the trash from your table.
We are severely limited in how we can solicit tips. I often do the following schtick after I've had a hand like I show a 4, flip a 7, then an Ace, then a 10. I'll point to the Ace and say "Hey, that Ace was very nice to us, can you all chip in a dollar so we can buy him some ice cream?" It's meant as a joke but maybe 1 time in 20 one or more players will toss me a nickel. It doesn't hurt that I've caught them at a time when incipient disaster (a dealer 11) has turned to joy (dealer busts).
I recently had a player brought to my table by the casino host; a middle-aged Asian woman, who bought in for $3000, which is a about the largest buy-in I get. She didn't seem very interested in the game; she left the table several times to apparently talk to friends. I had another player who was fairly inexperienced and when he lost all his chips he stayed at the table and she would toss him a quarter (it was a $25 table at the time) and he'd bet it with no apparent enthusiasm. I'm sure she had 5 times as much fun giving him the money than he did playing it, and she was playing her $3000 like a player who has put $30 in a slot machine and plans to play until they lose it all. I ran into the host a few days later and told her that she should make it part of her job to let her players know that dealers like money too, within the bounds of what she felt is appropriate. Hosts should be hired 10% for their technical understanding of casinos and 90% for pure people skills, so hopefully she would do what is optimal in each specific case. Keep in mind also that my casino has almost nothing we can do for whales. We have a sports pub, and fast-food type places for Asian and cheesesteaks, we don't serve cocktails at the tables but only beer, wine and sodas from a cart, but I think they can comp mixed drinks at the bar. We can't even tell someone who's been playing $100 a hand from 8PM to 6AM, that we have a room for them and a buffet either before they go to sleep or when they wake up.
Every so often a floor supervisor has the opportunity to work in a line like "Don't forget to take care of my dealers." It's pretty rare, and will happen most often if they ask for the current dealer to deal "one more hand" when they are tapped out and the floor will say "Sure, but don't forget to take care of my dealers." Often there's not even a floor there, and we always give them "one more hand" because it doesn't really screw up the relief rotation that much.
Some of our highest rollers tip little or nothing. I never work the pit where we have baccarat, and that's our biggest tip source, so I'm sure I miss a few of the biggest players. The two biggest players I have at my table, neither usually stays very long. One has tipped me maybe $30 over the nine months I've been working there, but he's so obnoxious that the casino has given him a time-out and might even make it permanent. The other never tips at all, not even the waitresses.
Last April there was a survey/vote taken of dealers which was considered kinda binding, and one thing that was agreed is that there should be a toke committee. Of course, management once again proving that they could screw up a one-car funeral, posted a list of all the dealers (it was done by shift) without even knowing who was interested and who wasn't. There's one guy who to me is the 1000% obvious choice, in that he's the one who takes an active interest in the tip situation in various ways. I told people to vote for him. One of the APM's (assistant pit manager) who was just promoted and is very popular said "Redtop, I told people to vote for you." I think this other guy (Blake) and I will get elected because I'm kinda known as a really intelligent, serious, analytical type. But will it be a paper tiger? If elected I will only be on it for a short time before I'm leaving (moving to Las Vegas) but I'll be very interested to see if they give it any authority. Like, we should recommend/request/require of management that they give us training on best practices for getting players to tip.
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Originally Posted by Freightman
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