Grimy casinos are hardly the last bastion of mannerly behavior, but even in the sketchiest card rooms basic etiquette and fairness rules exist that any player would be ashamed to break.  (Or, I should say almost any player.)

One of these is tipping the dealer.  It is understood that 80-90% of a dealer's income is expected to come from tips.  (They're paid almost nothing by the house -- kind of like restaurant wait-staff.)  So, players normally toss a dollar chip or two to the dealer when they win a pot (and sometimes more when the pot is very large).

Since the dealers essentially work for the players, only the most uncouth loser would make a practice of never tipping.  But, that behavior's apparently not too low for Poker Poseur -- a smug, twenty-something hipster doofus who plays at my local casino.

"I'm missing a dollar! I had put it out for my bet, but I think that dealer thought it was a tip!" PP griped loudly after raking a pot of more than $300. The dealer who dealt PP's big hand had just changed shifts -- and now PP apparently wanted the new dealer to give him a dollar of her own!

It's highly unusual for a dealer to mistake a bet for a tip. It seemed to me it could only happen if PP forgot to tip her, as anyone would normally do after winning such a big hand; then the dealer might have assumed his dollar bet was a tip. "Hmmm, had you already tipped her?" I asked him, expecting him to reply, "I can't remember," or "I think so." But, instead he shocked everyone at the table by barking, "NO! I am not here to make the dealers money, I'm here to make money myself.  I DON'T tip!"

Now, accidentally overlooking the tip after stacking a big pile of chips is understandable.  But, a policy of never tipping?  Outrageous.  Seeing the injured look on the new dealer's face, I asked PP, "Did you know that the dealers rely on tips for their income? Most of what they earn is tips." 

"I don't care!" ranted PP.  "It's not my responsibility to pay the dealers."

"Actually, it is," I protested.  "The fact is, they don't earn money if we don't tip them. It's just like waitstaff in restaurants."

PP lit up like a Roman candle. "I don't tip in restaurants, either," he laughed haughtily."It's not my responsibility to pay the staff.  Besides, I'm a vegetarian -- they make it hard for me to order something I want, so I don't think they deserve a tip."

By now half the table was shouting PP down, but to me it just seemed pointless.  Clueless PP didn't even seem to get that waiters don't set restaurant menus.  But I had to laugh at the irony of Mr. Progressive Vegetarian's pretentious commitment to "kindness to earth and animals" -- which apparently doesn't extend to mammals of his own species!

How Rude Is That?