When visiting Las Vegas, the culture of tipping can be pretty overwhelming, especially to those visiting from other countries. Tip someone for holding the door open, tip the dealer, tip room service, tip the lovely dancer. You need to have a pocket full of one dollar bills to go anywhere in the city. Sometimes it seems like too much, but as long as you understand how things work going in, you just deal with it and enjoy your day.
Earlier this month, I read about a tipping situation that bothered me, though. A poker player wrote in his blog about putting his name on a waiting list for a game at the Rio during the World Series of Poker (WSOP). The list was long – 10 to 12 players deep – but a floorman told him and his friend that he may be able to get them in a game quickly. Soon, the floorman tells the two friends that it looks like he can move them to the front of the line, adding, “You know, we’ll take care of you, if you take care of us.”
The guys declined to give the floorman a tip. Another floorman approached them with the same offer. Again, they declined. A few minutes later, they were shown to their seats and not-so-subtly reminded by the floorman that they should show their appreciation in monetary form. But that’s not the whole story. When they got to their table, there were three seats open and the other players were upset that those seats had not been filled for 20 minutes, despite the long waiting list.
According to the blogger, other tables for the same game and stakes had empty seats as well. And whenever his table lost a player, the floorman said that nobody on the waiting list was answering when their name was called.
The conclusion: the two floormen in question were putting fake names on the waiting list in order to make the list look long. They could then attempt to extract tips from eager players who were itching to sit down at a game. This story has been corroborated by multiple players who have experienced the same thing.
To my surprise, in the discussion about this on an internet poker forum, some imbeciles actually defended the floormen, saying that people need to do what they can to make a buck, especially in the Vegas tipping culture. The floormen were helping the players jump to the top of the list, after all. Shouldn’t they be given a bit of a thank you for their assistance?
Um, no. While many tips have become compulsory nowadays, in general, the purpose of a tip is to reward somebody for providing good service. Those floormen at the Rio were not providing good service at all. They were essentially defrauding their customers. What they wanted were bribes, not tips. Had the waiting list been populated with only real players, nobody would feel the need to “tip” a floorman to try to move up the list, as they wouldn’t have to wait long to get in a game.
Oddly, it seems as if the dealers did not do anything to stop this practice. They were upset about it, that is for sure. But just griping about it to the men conducting the scam doesn’t accomplish anything. The dealers want full tables, as full tables means more players that can tip them. Plus, the empty seats made the players upset and it is not a good night for a dealer when they have a table full of disgruntled players. And disgruntled players may just leave and play at another casino, hurting the Rio’s business.
While the big cash games at the Rio are now done until next year, that doesn’t mean that you should not keep your eyes open for similar schemes elsewhere. Even if you don’t encounter any such problem, you can learn something from this. Just because someone expects a tip doesn’t mean you are required to give one. I don’t recommend you live your life as a stingy nit – you must understand when to pick your battles – but don’t feel compelled to tip everyone for everything. Some people may try to take advantage of your generosity or unfamiliarity with your surroundings to coerce a tip out of you when they are providing no real service.
If you witness something sketchy like the waiting list fiasco that I described, don’t hesitate to bring it to the attention of someone in a position of authority. With poker, in particular, we need to keep the game and the card rooms clean. Fortunately, with the situation at the Rio, it appears that someone was notified and the scam was stopped. But even so, players were taken advantage of and walked away from the Rio with bad tastes in their mouths.
