ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

For the last couple of years, the Wynn tip stealing scheme has been a controversial subject, and late last week new fuel was added to the fire.

On Thursday, three dealers filed suit in U.S. District Court seeking to have Steve Wynn’s “tip sharing” policy stopped.

For those of you unaware of this particular policy, it’s very simple:

When you tip a dealer at a Wynn property, 15%-20% of that tip is confiscated and kept by resort management.  This includes the pit boss who’s principal job is to keep a close eye on you to make sure that you aren’t doing anything advantageous to yourself.

When it comes to gaming tables, a tip is a voluntary token of appreciation.  A gift.  A gift that I do not have to give.

I am not a lawyer, but under every tenant of common law of which I am aware … once I give a gift to someone, the gift then legally becomes the property of that individual.  The only time when this is not the case is if I have stolen the property, but my money at the table does not meet this definition.

If I am free to walk away with it, then I am free to transfer the property unencumbered.

Somehow, some way, Las Vegas has managed to eliminate this basic tenant of property law.

Between tip pooling and tip stealing, table gratuities in Las Vegas have devolved into a enormous clusterfornication.

At Las Vegas gaming tables, you don’t really tip the dealers.  You tip the house.  The house ostensibly gives your dealer some of your tip, but you have zero control over exactly how much this is.

This begs the question … what’s the point of tipping at all?

It’s a good question, and one which I am having a hard time answering at this point.

Your tips are not gratuities anymore.  They haven’t been for some time.  They are salaries.  Your tips are arbitrary gifts to shareholders.  Tips are accepted by the corporation under the auspices of a “token of appreciation”, although the reality is that they really represent nothing more than a justification to keep base salaries low … and thus profits high.

The general thinking is: “If the customers will pay the dealer’s salary … we won’t have to.”

This is also exactly why Wynn instituted his tip stealing policy for pit bosses.  Steve Wynn simply does not want to pay resort management more money out of his own pocket.  He wants you to pay for their raises out of your pocket … voluntarily.

The entire tipping debacle has gotten to the point that I will readily admit that I have begun tipping less.  When I tip these days, I feel like a tool.  I feel like an enabler.  I feel like part of the problem.  When I push a couple of chips to the dealer every ten hands or so,  I only ensure that the current system stays in place.  I’m not helping anyone other than the corporate bean counters.

It’s not just me that has become less enthusiastic about tips, though.  The dealers seem to be becoming more laissez faire toward them as well.

While a whale tip will still generate some excitement, the dealers don’t visibly care all that much about standard-sized tips anymore.  They are acutely aware that they will receive only a small fraction of any particular tip, and you can see it on their face.  They react almost instinctively.  They tap the chips on the table twice, say “thanks”, then drop them into the toke box … often without eye contact.

They simply have few incentives to work for tips anymore.  They don’t really like their jobs or their employers either.

I really can’t say that I blame them.

Lest the same tired arguments get dragged up, the answer is no.  The dealers cannot just get another job if they don’t like it.  Along with the “America, love it or leave it” slogan,  the “just leave your job if you don’t agree with their policies” is another common refrain that exists only to illustrate the intellectual inferiority of the American animal.

First of all, there are few other jobs in Las Vegas.  Second of all, without money, you probably can’t move anyplace else to find one (especially if you have a mortgage).  Third of all, if you quit, you are not entitled to unemployment compensation.  This means that you and your family may starve.  Fourth, you will lose all of your health benefits, and unless everyone in your family has a perfect bill of health … you will either be bankrupt or dead in short order.

It’s the prototypical rock and hard place.

Lack of real healthcare has led to lifelong indentured servitude in this country, which is why the status-quo is vehemently against any efforts to allow universal health access.   A frightened employee is an obedient employee.  As long as you are afraid of losing your health coverage or are afraid that you will not be able to eat, you will do whatever your overseer says.  And thus, most people do.

The fact is, for most people, the courts are the only thing standing between them and one authoritarian corporate employer after another.

For those unfortunate enough to have been reading my articles for the past couple of years, you will know that two years ago when this first became an issue, I wholeheartedly sided with the dealers and I continue to do so.

Should these dealers lose all of their cases, tip stealing will spread to the rest of Las Vegas.  Like the frog in the boiling pot, it may take awhile, but it will happen.

Armed with a favorable court decision, accountants for every corporate casino will sit in the boardroom and ask “Hey, Wynn is legally stealing tips to pay salaries … why aren’t we?”

When this happens, dealer morale will go down even more, appreciation for your tips will be even less than they are today, and the “Vegas experience” will continue its retreat into mediocrity.  Superior employees expect a living wage, therefore, service will decline as dealers who vocalize their discontent will be replaced with less demanding, less intelligent, less experienced employees.

We’ve already seen this in the cab industry.  Good cabbies who speak out against injustice are fired, and are replaced with shysters who don’t know the city, can’t speak English, and would just as soon spit on you as they drive you to your destination.

Unless you want the last guy who drove you to the airport dealing your next hand of Blackjack, you better hope that the dealers win this round in District Court.

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