Why are Las Vegas cabbies so weird about tips?

[Reef]

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Lap dance - tipping for lap dance? When did that start?

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Tipping after a lap dance is not necessary unless she has shared her roast beef sandwich with you, or if you accidentally sneezed on her.

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I think the reason that I tip generously on cab rides is that I have a friend who used to drive a taxi, and at least in his case I learned that cab drivers are compensated far less than you think.

I can't remember exactly how it worked but he had to pay a high hourly rental fee to the cab company. Some of you guys seem to think that if you get a $30 ride and tip $5, the cabby is pocketing $35.

But I think if you amoritize his rental fee or whatever over the duration of your cab ride, he basically makes little more than whatever you tip.

Not sure though. Hopefully the LV cab driver can give us the details.

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Driving a taxi in Las Vegas is different than any other city in the world. In most citys the driver can own the cab , lease the cab or rent the cab. In Las Vegas the taxis are all owned by the companies. We net 25 % of the fare. We get to keep our tips but the IRS taxes us 23 % . In other words if a driver puts 200.00 dollars in fares on his/her meter during their shift, the IRS taxes us on the 46.00 they assume we made in tips. Also a trip charge comes off the top of the fare. It varies from 1.00 - 1.50 depending on the company. We also buy our own gas. My fuel runs me about 55.00 per day.
I do not beg for tips and I try not to insult people when they are Cheap ( unless they openly boast about it on a message board ) It is a waste of my time and breath to insult someone who tips me a buck because Cheap People will never change. Cheap people will always look for an excuse not to tip and always find one. All I can hope for is the New Vegas will price the Cheapo's off the strip.

Growing up in this city I was saddened to see the historic hotels being imploded one by one. But the New Tourist have changed me. I can not wait until July when the Frontier closes. Hopefully the Sahara, Rivera , Circus and Tropicana will fall in the near future. As these hotels come down rates will increase due to a room shortage and a few more Cheap People will not visit Las Vegas.

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Strip clubs (and casinos?) pay you for bringing customers, no?

Also, being a cab driver in LV has to be better than being one in LA.

In LA there's not a single person who has been in the US for more than a week, speaks english, or knows how to drive that will take the job.

[El Diablo]

djd, PITTM:

I really do tip $5 for each drink in Vegas, but I think $1 is perfectly appropriate. I just am usually gambling with green and black chips and tipping the dealer $5s and I figure why not give the waitresses $5 a drink too. They usually really appreciate it and usually give me extra good service. At places where I'm a regular, people like pit bosses are very aware of how much people are tipping dealers and other staff, and they are much nicer and helpful to those people as well. I am well aware that I am overtipping and it's just something I often do in Vegas where I treat money completely differently to how I do in regular day-to-day life. I also usually get two drinks at a time, an alcoholic beverage and a bottle of water, for which I think an appropriate tip is $2 or $3, so I'm not overtipping that much.

But yeah, obviously the "everyone does" was addressing all the people who were bitching at Nate's perfectly appropriate cab tip. I think it's silly to bitch at him or anyone about that being cheap unless you are tipping really big everywhere, including cocktail waitresses and ESPECIALLY housekeeping, who I think get screwed over the most, oftentimes by people who pride themselves in being big tippers.

[Starfish]

About "cheap people":

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We get to keep our tips but the IRS taxes us 23 % .

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So IRS estimates you make 23% tips over your fares. Do you make more or less than this? In Las Vegas many customers are drunk or in spending mood or both, so you'll prolly make more than that.

It doesn't go this way, that everybody leaves minimum of 23%. Otherways you should be taxed more. It's greedy to ask everybody for that, and not pay your taxes for the extra. Poker players, at least in USA, must pay taxes for every cent they make, unlike you, btw.

Tips are voluntary extra that some people pay, some don't. I repeat: voluntary. It's opposite of obligatory.

I recommend to try this: for one week (or two weeks, or a month), don't pay tips for anything. Then, start to think, what are the stupidest, but still common, situations to tip you can think of. Like tipping bartenders that make a lot of money anyway. Then the next week start tipping again, like 5-15% max, but only those who really deserve it. Never tip 15% for an expensive meal for two. $15 extra for 100 meal is just crazy. Try to tip the same dollar amount than to those in cheap places.

Now, calculate how much extra have you paid during the year to bar tenders etc madness. Then spend that money to something much more important, like give it to school education or whatever. It's much better that kids get good education than you pay the coke of the bar tender or crank of the cabbie.

Of course you might lose some benefits, like gettin a taxi before others in line or getting some "free" (stolen) drinks from bartenders. Those kind of reasons are the ones why most Russians reasoned why they thought paying corruption money was a good thing in their society in some study. Getting something extra. But if everybody pays extra, you can get those extra benefits only by paying more, and more... And they are often stolen from other people or the employer etc.

[Starfish]

Whatever I think about tipping culture and tips as a part of payment to employees, I momentarily felt bad for those poor cabbies that don't have the skills to hustle the maximum from tourists. So I figured they could use some help with lines to say to customers - how to increase the pot size, you could say.

First, you must analyze your opponent. Is he drunk, rich, poor, on holiday or work etc. What is his current mood, and could you alter it witch chat, music, stories etc. So start with asking some questions to find out these and plan your strategy.

A strategy example:

Old women or couple. First chat something nice, light, mention Jesus or church and your family. Then tell its very hard because of expensive living and poor income of taxi drivers. Tell them there will be your daughter's birthday tomorrow. Chat more about your daughters. Get good collection of child pictures handy. Last, put in a cassette with a 8-year-old girl singing. When you can squeeze out a tear, you have reached another level.

I may come back with more strategic ideas later. Anyway, make a lot of different strategies, test them, adjust them, and swap them with other cabbies. But I'm sure you do already.

Also make up some stories with celebrities involved. When driving poker players, tell them stories about the Phills, Negreanu and if they are young, players like Antonius, sbrugby, Brandi etc. Make them gross, like pissing over toilet walls when drunk, and you can be pretty sure about big tips.

[glimmertwin]

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Now, calculate how much extra have you paid during the year to bar tenders etc madness. Then spend that money to something much more important, like give it to school education or whatever. It's much better that kids get good education than you pay the coke of the bar tender or crank of the cabbie.


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My old mum used to operate on the principle that you should never tip self-employed tradesmen on the grounds that they almost certainly make more money than you do. Although I've never been able to follow in her footsteps in this regard, it always seemed like a sensible idea to me.

Also, I completely agree with El Diabolo in this respect: the one group of service people I'm always sure to tip are hotel maids. They do a [censored] job for [censored] money, work extremely hard and are very poorly rewarded.

A fiver ($10) under the pillow makes a real difference to their income here in the UK.

[Starfish]

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Also, I completely agree with El Diabolo in this respect: the one group of service people I'm always sure to tip and tip well are hotel maids. They do a [censored] job for [censored] money, work extremely hard and are very poorly rewarded.

A fiver ($10) under the pillow makes a real difference to their income here in the UK.

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I can agree with this. But there are professions that are poorly paid (in many countries), that don't get any tip. Like nurses.

So, that is just another thing that proofs that charity is not the essence of the tipping culture. But small scale corruption and the game of respect. People hate the idea that they don't get respect, and those selling it want a good price from it.

Shopping for respect, that's what it's all about. And when you are drunk, you want, even require more respect than usually. That's why you may start a fight if you feel you don't get it, or are willing to pay more for it.

[NajdorfDefense]

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tip what you want that's cool.. but i just hate the idea of tipping for something like a cab. what the [censored], you know? just charge me X dollars and take me where i want to go.

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Why didn't you order a car service then -- they charge flat fees? Oh, right, they charge more, you seem to want it both ways.


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maybe if there's a girl in the back to give me a bj i will tip, that seems above and beyond reasonable service

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Yeah, your position is completely reasonable.

[NajdorfDefense]

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For real though, my experience is that for such a tip-hustling culture vegas has pretty much the worst service in general of anywhere Ive ever been.

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AMEN.

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The only people I know who think this way about LV are bad tippers.

[daryn]

i want it both ways? whatever dude, what's so unreasonable about wanting to pay for what i get? oh wow the cab didn't explode. wow, i got to my destination in one piece! we didn't even kill any pedestrians! kudos to you oh taxi driver! let me rain tips upon you.