[BigAlChicago]

I was lucky enough to get a small table share of one at the Trump in Gary (now Majestic Star II) about a month ago. The table share was about $260....The table captain, a Trump regular in his 60's who likes to refer to all of the younger players at the table as "his son", was urging everyone to not forget the dealer. No problem, but when I asked him how much was appropriate, he was clueless. I suggested about 2-3% and we all decided that we would toke the dealer $10 and throw $5 to the player who was away from the table on break, and thus did not qualify for a table share. (This guy had been seated at the table for a few hours at the time the JP hit, but seemed to be constantly gone from the table on break. If it had just been a pit stop for a leak, I would have been inclined to cut him in for closer to a fair share, but he would play an orbit, then disappear for what seemed like two, come back for one and disappear again.)

Anyway, the winner of the hand (and thus a quarter of the jackpot, like $1700 if memory serves) was in the two seat, I was in the one seat. He asked me how much he should tip. I told him $50 felt right...about 3%. So that is what he tossed the dealer. The winner of the jackpot ended up buying drinks for the table (no free alcohol at the Trump!) I don't think he was at the table for much of the conversations concerning tip levels, but he only tossed the dealer $25 as he was leaving. Oh well, I think he went on the cheap...less than 1% to the dealer, but c'est la guerre.

I think he was feeling generous towards the other players, because he was oblivious to the jackpot. At Trump, the "winning" hand has to be Aces full of tens or better losing. The JP winner and seat 2 were going at it on a board through the turn of AA44, suits unimportant. You could see the wheels turning in the heads' of the Trump vets at the table when the turn went 4 bets.

The river came Q. The two players went two or three bets on the river, with seat two tabling pocket fours. The JP winner was about to much his losing hands when several of us encouraged him to show. He had AQ and rivered the bad beat winning hand. However, without the encouragement, all would have been lost. I believe that is why he felt indebted to the table and bought the round.

In any event, I was thinking of posting at the time to find out what everyone thought the right tip should be. I am gratified to know that my instinct of about 3% seemed to be right on based on this thread.

One question -- Do you think there should be any difference if the dealers share their tokes (as is the case at Trump) or not?

BTW, I believe with the Majestic Star take over, the poker dealers' tokes will be pooled with the rest of the table game dealers.