Tipping the dealer
Tipping the dealer at cash poker tables is a concept which is fairly alien to many players in countries outside of the USA. In any regular European casino you can merrily go about your business without even the slightest thought of tipping. Most casinos go to the extent of not even allowing it, even if you were that way generously inclined.
Most casinos and card rooms in all countries will charge a fee in terms of a percentage rake, or in terms of an hourly charge, or in terms of a set fee per hand. That is where the line usually stops, and your main job as a player is to stay ahead of the rake/charge and carve out a profit on top. However in the States tipping becomes almost an extra “hidden” fee on top. An extra tier of juice so to speak.
This is great for the dealers, who can potentially earn good amounts at the right tables, however it is slightly less good for the player. From my perspective I have never really liked the idea of tipping in any casino based or card room based game. When you’re lucky you give up some winnings, but when you are unlucky no-one is going to give those earlier tips back. There is a sort of underlying injustice there. That injustice is probably most obviously seen in a fixed-edge game like roulette. The house has a very specific fixed edge in their favor. The longer you play the more you can expect to gradually lose. So to tip a “winning” spin with the odds always set at negative expected value seems borderline crazy, yet amazingly almost compulsary in the USA. Where it is less easy to define the odds against you at a cash poker table against your piers, it is still equally absurd to be expected to do it.
Sometimes social conventions become established which have no sensible place in existing. This is certainly one of those instances.
Tags: tipping in poker