{"id":41955,"date":"2018-03-20T09:44:33","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T16:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=41955"},"modified":"2018-03-20T09:44:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T16:44:33","slug":"the-cost-of-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/the-cost-of-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cost of Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

In mid-February, Andrew Uyal, a Las Vegas Strip casino pit boss, wrote in his Behind the Curtain<\/span><\/i> column on the <\/span>www.gamblingwithanedge.com<\/span><\/a> site an article titled<\/span> Who Actually Cares? <\/span><\/i>It was about tipping. One of the comments made to his article was about my writing, so Uyal forwarded it to me to make sure I saw it. I\u2019m going to address that today.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Bob discusses how a given game in a given casino has a positive EV, I have never seen him factor in tokes in his highly detailed calculations despite his listing every other conceivable variable involved. It seems to me that giving up even $5 or $10 or more on big wins would have a substantial impact on beating the casino if one only hopes to beat the casino by ~.02%<\/span><\/p>\n

Do APs refrain from toking, because it’s the only way to maintain a positive EV? If APs do tip when they win, why doesn’t Bob cost tips in his calculus for the EV of the games he plays?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I have written more than a dozen articles through the years about tipping. The Cliff Notes of my views are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Tipping is a personal matter. Everybody must decide for himself.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. I tip less than many other players.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. If I\u2019m teaching at a casino, e.g. the South Point now but it has been other places as well over the years, I always tip at least $5 on every hand pay. I do not wish complaints about this to get upstairs which might affect my welcome.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. If I\u2019m playing at a 15-machine bar, which abound in Nevada and very occasionally offer very lucrative games\/promotions, the only casino employee on sight is the bartender. If the game is lucrative enough, I tip more generously in these situations than I would in a regular casino. (If the game is not that lucrative, I don\u2019t play.) A bartender can easily complain to the boss if I\u2019m \u201cwinning all the time.\u201d If he is well-tipped, he has an incentive to keep his mouth shut in this regard. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, without expanding on the Cliff Notes too much, let me see if I can find something new to say. The letter-writer to Andrew Uyal believes that video poker players only have a 0.02% advantage. Believe me, if that were the size of the advantage, I wouldn\u2019t be playing. I need a significantly larger advantage than that. <\/span><\/p>\n

    To show how this is not nearly enough, I used <\/span>Video Poker for Winners<\/i><\/b> and looked at NSU Deuces Wild (returning 99.728%) and assumed a slot club of 0.3%. This gives the player a 100.028 game, which is actually quite a bit more than the 0.020% edge posited. A dollar single-line player needs a bankroll of more than $1 million to have a 99% chance of not going broke in the long run. I\u2019ve never heard of a dollar player having anywhere near this size of gambling bankroll. Those of us who do have larger bankrolls typically play for larger stakes than dollar single line.<\/span><\/p>\n

    In his column, Andrew Uyal addresses tips from the point of view of table games. In table games, the dealer and the player are face-to-face all-day long. A good dealer can enhance the gambling experience. In places where \u201cwhen to shuffle\u201d is a dealer-decision, a well-timed tip can sometimes get you one more hand. But unless you\u2019re betting $100 or more, a $5 tip will almost always be cost-ineffective, and anything less than that could be perceived as an insult.<\/span><\/p>\n

    In video poker, you rarely interact with the floor people except in the case of a W2G. The floor people bring you the money. Period. I\u2019m nice to these people. I learn their names over time. But I don\u2019t see normal jackpots as a tip-worthy event.<\/span><\/p>\n

    An exception to this would be a high-value promotion where there are LOTS of W2Gs hitting all the time. Then tipping makes sense because if the floor people have to decide who to take care of first, it\u2019s human nature to help the tokers first. \u00a0Since time is money on these types of plays, \u201csharing the wealth\u201d a bit is smart gambling.<\/span><\/p>\n

    So yes, video poker APs tend to tip less than recreational players. With that said, there will always be APs who honestly believe that toking well is simply a cost of doing business and that minimum wage floor people need the money more than a player who can afford to play $50 a hand or more. <\/span><\/p>\n

    I understand that point of view. I also understand the point of view that when you lose $10,000, floor people never offer to share your losses with you. It\u2019s a one-way street. They only want to share your wins.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Both points of view make sense to some degree. You\u2019ll have to balance them for yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Finally, in most cases I tip zero, which is why I don\u2019t explicitly list the cost of tips in my calculations.<\/span><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In mid-February, Andrew Uyal, a Las Vegas Strip casino pit boss, wrote in his Behind the Curtain column on the www.gamblingwithanedge.com site an article titled Who Actually Cares? It was about tipping. One of the comments made to his article was about my writing, so Uyal forwarded it to me to make sure I saw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[428,331,196],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cost of Tips<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Video poker APs tend to tip less than recreational players.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/the-cost-of-tips\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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