Page 25 - November 2012 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
EA Quick (and Slightly Different) Take on Tipping
very now and then I get a question about tipping. Somebody hit a 50¢ royal ush and wanted to know how much to tip on the $2,000 jackpot. He actually tipped $20 and wanted to know if that was too much or too little. Although everybody has a di erent formula for this, most
folks would consider tipping 1% on such a jackpot to be in the “reasonable” range. I think it’s the wrong question.
A 50¢ royal is a pretty rare, every 40,000+ hands event. Tipping $5, $10, $20, or even $40 for such an event doesn’t a ect your ev (expected value) very much because it happens so rarely.
If you’re playing a $5 or $10 game, you’re probably getting hand-pays every 400 hands. is is 100 times as often as you’re getting them on 50¢ machines. e amount you tip here makes a huge di erence in your ev.
Do the math. A $20 tip on an every 40,000-hand event is the proportional
I care about ev, and as such, I look at tipping as a proportion of total bet, not the amount of the jackpot.
e other factor to consider is how often you play. A $10 player could be getting 100 times the number of hand-pay jackpots of a 50¢ player who plays as many hands. But if the $10 player is a pro and the 50¢ player is an occasional recreational player, the $10 player is getting thousands of times the number of hand-pay jackpots simply because the pro plays a lot more hands.
equivalent of a 20¢ tip on an every 400-hand event (i.e., 20¢ is 1/100th of $20 and a 400-hand event is 1/100th of a 40,000- hand event). And tipping 20¢ will tick o casino employees worse than tipping zero.
“A once-every-two-year royal is very exciting. Folks tend to tip more when they are really excited.
For someone who gets
In this scenario, the 50¢ royal may well be a once- every-two-year event. A once-every-two-year royal is very exciting. Folks tend to tip more when they are really excited. For someone who gets
100 hand-pays a month, however, each one is not such a big deal. It makes sense to tip less in this kind of situation...if at all.
Although it varies quite a bit depending on the availability of games, I typically receive between $4 million and $10 million in w-2gs annually. Tipping 1% of that would be $40,000 to $100,000
More than once that would have turned a winning year into a losing year.
I’ve heard folks say, “If I had the money to play $25 machines, I’d de nitely tip well.” Perhaps. Talk is cheap when it’s unlikely you will ever be in such a position. If and when you actually get into that position, you’ll nd the world looks a lot di erent than you thought it would beforehand.
And it remains much easier to tell others what they should do with their lives rather than gure out what’s best for your own life.
Listen to Bob’s radio show Gambling With An Edge, on Thursday evenings 7 to 8 p.m. Pacific Time on radio station 1230 AM in Las Vegas online at klav1230am.com. Dancer’s products may be ordered at bobdancer.com or at 1-800-244-2224 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time.
As a percent of total bet,
tipping $1 on a jackpot
earned while playing $10
games is comparable to
tipping $20 on a 50¢ jackpot.
Tipping $1 on a jackpot will
give you strange looks, but
it will probably be accepted
with a “thank you,” albeit
perhaps sarcastically. If this
is the amount you deem
appropriate, it’s probably better to sti them nine times and give then $10 the tenth.
100 hand-pays a month, however, each one is not such a big deal. It makes sense to tip less in this kind of situation...if at all.”
per year. Forget about it! at’s not going to happen.
NOVEMBER 2012
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
PAGE 25