Tipping on hand Pays and Taxables.

Sue, I believe that you and I are in the same ballpark with the amounts you tipped - not too much but a fair amount for services rendered.

I agree that tipping is getting somewhat out of hand in recent years; you never saw tip jars next to the cashier in fast food outlets and stores ten years ago. And there are places (Japan, for example), where tips are just not part of the culture (they can even be seen as mildly insulting, i.e., having to bribe people for doing their job), they'll use service fees instead.

That being said, I'll tip the usual 15 or 20% in a restaurant, $1 or $2 for drinks in the casino. I agree with Rec, about 1% is okay for hand-pays (I'll tip $20 for a $1K hand-pay; haven't hit that dollar royal yet, but I'm guessing $20 for that, too; depends on employee attitude). I won't tip for ridiculously low hand-pays (I've had $100 hand-pays in the past, no way that should be a hand-pay) or for hopper fills (I've seen people do that, and have seen employees with their hands out). I toke about 1 or 2 base bets per hour at the tables if I'm doing okay and if the dealer isn't an ass.

I've seen some crazy tippers, though. Once I was playing three-card poker, and the woman next to me was betting $10 per hand and putting up a $5 bet for the dealer on EVERY hand. I saw this for over an hour. The dealer was hesitating over my bet on every hand, giving me this cow-eyed, disappointed look. Guess how much I toked him.

There was also a post on these boards a few years ago, someone was saying that they tipped at least 40 or 50% for waiters, and if the service was better than just adequate, up to 100%. Go figure.

I'm a slot attendant for a Penn Gaming property in West Virginia, and I've received a $250 tip for a $1,250 jackpot, and then again I've paid out as much as $25,000, all in cash, and received nothing. Have learned to take the bad with the good. Don't blame anyone for not tipping, especially if they're behind, but I certainly do appreciate whatever I get, especially since I have to pay a "Tip Tax", whether I receive them or not (approximately $100 per week added to my gross income for tax purposes). Just wanted to relay something that happened at our property about a week or two ago. I wasn't in on this because it was after my shift was over and in another part of the building---but a lady hit a $100,000 jackpot on a $100 machine. She requested a check for $90,000 and the remainder in cash. After the attendant gave her the check, he started to count the money, and she told him "that's yours". Keep it. Well, he had to count the money to her anyway, because that's the rules, and there was both a slot manager and a finance manager witnessing it, because it was such a huge payout, so he counted the cash all out to her, and she handed it back to him. It was a Saturday night, so there were alot of attendants working the area, so it was split nine ways (we generally split between all the attendants working the section----early on weekdays there may be one, two or three, but at peak hours, there may be eight or ten. But still not a bad night's work, every attendant in that area went home with over a grand. Is this insane? Probably. Even as a person who makes $11 bucks an hour and banks heavily on tips, even I wouldn't think of tipping that much, and this is certainly extremely rare. I have worked there for over eleven years, and the biggest tip I had ever heard of was a little over a grand.

Very informative jokermgb and as to the $10,000 tip, all I can say is wow. That is generous indeed, especially given that the winner will have to pay taxes on that $10,000, which could be at least two to three thousand, depending on her losses for the year.

Glad you tipped her for watching your machine. Have seen too many attendants/waitresses/cleaning people watch a machine and then only get a "thanks" upon player return.