Do You Tip Casino Cashiers
Some people don’t want a check. Some people just want cash.
Ever wondered how the casino cashes out large amounts if the gambler prefers cash? The simple and short answer is that, if you want cash, they just give you cash, regardless of how large the cash out. Most US casinos are required by their relevant jurisdictions to have enough cash to cover their chips in circulation.
If you’re curious, like me, and want to know more, read on. Casino procedures interest me.
Casino Cashier Resume
It's about time somebody stood up for casino cashiers. We are in a tip based position also, and still only manage to pull, what $50 in tips in a two week period. Something's gotta give people! If the service is good, I sometimes tip the cashier (who just finished building my sandwich). I also sometimes tip the cashier at Freebird Burritos where the service has never been less than excellent in 30+ visits. Posted Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:45 pm.
First, if the amount is usually over $1000-$2000, the cage will ask for some form of ID. Without your ID for tax reasons, they won’t cash out your chips.
If the amount is over $10,000 per day, on the aggregate, they’ll also ask for your social security number.
Then the cashier will call for security clearance. Sometimes, before calling security, they’ll ask you where you got the chips.
Now to the cash out part that involves purely cash, when after you and your chips have been cleared.
If you’ve ever cashed out casino chips, you know they count each bill. Wouldn’t it take quite a while to count out $100,000 or more?
It’s actually quite easy if the amount is in $50,000 or $100,000 increments. They give you a sealed pre-counted brick like this. According to the cage manager, these bricks are counted while under surveillance and are always correct.
So cashing out $100,000 is actually easier and faster than cashing out $10,000.
For $10,000, they give you a strap of cash, called a ‘mustard’ strap (so-called because of the mustard color of the band). But first, since the strap is not sealed, they have to run it through an automatic sorter first. Afterward, in my experience, the cashier doesn’t then bother to count it by hand. They just hand you the strap, typically. The exception is if you ask for a count.
The next easiest thing to cash out is either $5000 or $2000 in chips. There are straps of $5000 and $2000, but unlike the $10,000 strap, where the casino cage just gives you the $10,000 strap after the machine count, the casino will manually count out, by hand to you, even after the automatic machine count. My suspicion for this practice is that the cashiers like to count out the smaller straps because there is the increased possibility of a tip, especially if the cash out amount is something like $4004.
If you don’t want the cage to count out the bills, you can tell them that you trust the machine count. However, I’ve had instances where I’m in a rush, and I tell the cashier that I’ll trust the machine, only to be rebuffed by most cashiers who insist on a hand count of an odd amount. I’ve been told that it’s for the eye in the sky because allegedly, they’ve had customers come back and say a bill was missing.
The amount that takes longest to cash out is something odd like $7500. Because since there is no pre-made strap, and even if the amount is exactly $7000, they won’t just give you a $5000 strap and a $2000 strap. They’ll count out the seventy-five $100 bills.
Note that in the event you have a lucky day at the casino, the casino cashier will have the following straps ready.
Here is a strap that I have never ever been given in a casino. I had to ask for it, and the cashier handed it over, without counting it out.
All the colors for the straps above are universal, at least in the US. So if you ask for a purple strap, the cashier will know that you’re asking for $2000.
Oh, and just so you know, I don’t carry this cash on me. I turn it into the cage when I leave the property.
…and now you know.
Posted in: Casino, Gambling
In my last two “Casino Poker for Beginners” articles, I introduced you to the poker room personnel you’re likely to meet. These people are paid to be there. Who pays them? You do, directly or indirectly. The “indirectly” part is what they get in paychecks, which ultimately come out of the rake — those chips that the dealer drops into a bin under the table after every hand.
Let’s talk about the “directly” part.
Tipping is always a controversial topic. If you want to start an argument on a poker-related online forum, just ask how much you should tip poker dealers. Or, better yet, express a definite opinion on the subject, and watch how everybody proceeds to disagree with you. Ask 10 poker players how dealers should be tipped, and you’ll get 11 different answers.
I won’t pretend to have the definitive answer. But I can give you some general principles that I think should govern your decision, plus my own specific formula.
Let’s start with the general. I will be so bold as to assert that if your recipe for tipping, whatever the specifics of it may be, fulfills these principles, you’re doing it right, and you may safely and confidently ignore any detractors who think you should do it their way instead:
- If everybody tipped the same way you do, the dealers, waitresses, and others who depend on tips for their livelihood would make an hourly rate with which they’re content.
- You either tip every person in the same position (e.g., every dealer) exactly the same, or the differences in your tipping are based on the person’s performance. You do not tip either more or less based on gender, appearance, or other characteristics over which the recipient has no control.
- You do not withhold tips to punish service people for things that are outside of their control.
- You are neither so stingy that you breed resentment from the people who are serving you, nor so generous that you seriously cut into your own profits.
- You feel good about what you’re doing. That is, you’re not feeling guilty for being a tightwad, and you’re not expending so much mental energy deciding how much to tip that it interferes with paying attention to and enjoying the poker game.
Now for the specifics — or at least the specifics that I settled on years ago, and that have stood me in good stead ever since.
Dealers
I tip cash-game dealers one $1 chip for every pot I win or chop. It’s the same if I just pick up the blinds, or I win my biggest pot of the night. I increase that to $2 or occasionally even $3 if the hand takes unusually long to play out.
Hands might take longer because of multiple side pots, or because of the need to count down large stacks of chips, or because the floor had to be called to settle some matter, or because players had difficult decisions, each requiring time to think. The extra money is to compensate the dealer for the fact that he or she will get out fewer hands than usual in this down (a “down” being the time dealing to one table, usually 30 minutes).
I will tip an extra $5 if I win a high-hand jackpot. I also like to give a little extra reward to dealers who are exceptionally good. Once in a while a dealer really impresses me with how he or she keeps the game running smoothly, rapidly, and enjoyably. For such outstanding performance, I give the dealer an extra $1 chip as he or she is leaving for the next table, along with the message, “I like how you run the game.”
Similarly, I like dealers who consistently enforce the rules. Some dealers are reluctant to correct players who are talking about the hand in progress, or speaking in a language other than English, and so forth. Sadly, players who get called out — even in the most respectful manner — for breaking rules get embarrassed and tip less, which makes dealers gun-shy about rule enforcement. So when a dealer professionally handles a difficult situation like that, I do the same kind of end-of-down extra, with an encouraging message such as, “Thanks for handling things so well.”
Just as an aside, one of the reasons I prefer the two seats next to the dealer is that I can deliver those tips and messages quietly and semi-privately. If I’m in another seat, I might wait until I can catch the dealer away from the table, rather than have all the other players watching and listening.
Do You Tip Casino Cashiers Online
Maybe something like once a year, a dealer will do something so outrageously insulting or unprofessional that I will stiff him or her — no tips for the rest of the down or shift. It would take too long to explain the kinds of bizarre circumstances that have led me to that “nuclear” option, but they’re very, very rare.
Those are guidelines I follow when tipping dealers in cash games. Tipping of tournament dealers is a separate matter, which I’ll address when I do an article on all aspects of tournament play.
Cashiers
There are only three ways to leave a cash game: If I lose all of my chips, I have no reason to stop at the cashier, let alone leave a tip. If I leave with a profit, I routinely tip the cashier $1. If I’m cashing out but with a loss, I don’t tip.
I realize that this is not strictly logical; after all, the cashier is doing close to the same amount of work either way. I admit that it is mostly an emotional point for me, in that it’s easier to give away a tiny bit of my profit than it is to deepen my loss.
So I repeat: On each of the specifics of my methods, one could argue that there are different, and even better, ways of doing it.
Chip runners
It’s rare that I play in a casino that uses chip runners, so I haven’t developed the habit of tipping them. On the occasions that I’m in a place that uses chip runners, I usually only think about tipping them long after it’s too late. It’s possible that this neglect means that I’m a horrible person. I’d like to think that if my regular places of play used chip runners, I’d have this process worked out better.
Floor personnel
If the floor person does me some special service, such as counting out and bringing me a high-hand jackpot, I’ll tip a dollar. Otherwise, I have not found much call for tipping them. It would be unseemly, for example, to tip such a person for making a call in a table dispute that goes your way, just as a baseball player doesn’t tip the umpire for calling him safe at second base. Unlike the other people in this list, floor personnel are not being paid minimum wage, and are therefore much less dependent on tips to make a living.
Cocktail waitresses
I think $1 per drink (whether soft or hard) is both decent and standard.
I’ve asked a few dealer friends about my tipping protocol, and they have all endorsed it as one with which they have no argument, which pleases me.
One final thought: If there is a poker room where you think you will be spending a lot of hours over a long period of time — your “home room,” so to speak — err on the side of tipping more generously. You might be pleasantly surprised at all the ways the staff can make your time there both more pleasant and more profitable if they decide you’re a player who is worth extra effort to keep happy.
Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker on the “Poker Grump” blog.
Casino Cashier Salary
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
Casino Cashier Pay
Tags
cash game strategytournament strategylive pokercasino pokeretiquetterulestipping