Pay Changes for the 'Floor' in my Local Room

How could we possible know when we know the room.

I would recommend this go to the tipping containment thread because the whole topic of whether floors should be allowed to accept tips will get contentious pretty quick.

I'm guessing the floors are in charge of seating players at your room. I used to play at a room like this. I had a friendly relationship with the floor, and would be sure to tip him when I had a winning session. In return he would direct me into the juiciest games.

I'm guessing he did pretty well off of tips.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Those numbers ($15 and $30) do not seem right. I am not blaming you, I am just wondering if you heard wrong or only part of the story?

2. Given #1 above, I doubt that the floor people were making $420 a week in tips in a small room with only 6-8 tables (or less). That seems like way too much. Especially since most floor tips come from higher limit players which most small rooms won't have.

3. Depending upon the casino in question, the floor might not be taxed on their tips. Yes legally they should be claiming them, but might not be. It is complicated. So where I am going with this point is that $1 in pay might not equal $1 replacement of tips. If they were making $13 or $14 per hour in tips (which seems unlikely in such a small room......) then increasing their pay by $15 per hour but eliminating tips would cost them.

4. In some small rooms, the floor also acts as the cashier. In these cases it might make more sense of them making more in tips because most winning players tip at least a little when cashing out. So they might easily make $13 per hour cashing players out.

Just as a side note, to me, in a perfect world, floorpeople should never be allowed to accept tips. Never. I understand it happens and I completely understand why and accept it as part of the current system.

But I think floorpeople are often called upon to be the arbiter of the games. Not only with rules calls, but with table changes, list decisions, and all sorts of other calls. As such, I would like to think they are acting completely neutral and follow strict rules and such in each of their decisions, but human nature is what it is.

Can you imagine Juan Soto or Clayton Kershaw tipping the home plate umpire? How would you feel as the opposing team when borderline calls go against you?

I knew of a situation of a room that had lots of high limit play. Whenever there ended up being a juicy high limit game, the floor in charge of the high limit area would call a pro and let him know about the game. The pro would then show up and later give the floor a small percentage of his winnings.

Floorpeople are the umpires of poker. They should not be allowed to accept tips. Ever. Even 3 hours after work at a nearby bar. That should be a fireable offense.

All of that said, floorpeople are drastically underpaid, especially if you want to prevent them from accepting tips. In most places I have worked, floorpeople don't necessarily make more than dealers when tips are considered. If they do it is only slightly and the better dealers still probably make more than them.

I also understand it would require a drastic increase in rake to make it so floor made more than dealers while also not being able to accept tips. I am not sure most poker players are prepared to pay this much in rake so instead the status quo remains.

Were they getting the tips from players or from dealers? Many rooms either withhold a percentage of dealer tips to go to supervisors, or it's expected for them to tip out at the end of the night.

Unless it's a big room with big games, I wouldn't think floors are getting tipped that much that consistently from players.

When floors go above and beyond like getting chips or starting a game short handed they usually get a tip between 5 and 25. I’ve seen whales tip 100 to get games started.

This used to be the rule in Atlantic City years ago (floor not being able to accept tips) and I agree with you that would be ideal. I just think like you said they need the extra income and many do provide good service and make a good impact on the player experience so I think it makes sense players should be able to reward them. I have never seen a ruling obviously wrong be made in favor of someone who tips at least that I can remember. The preferences tend to be given on table transfers to good games, getting a game started, etc. It’s just part of the poker culture I think at this point.

As far as I know it is still the rule in AC, and also is still the rule in PA. of course people can find creative ways to get around the rules, especially for the dual rates, but generally speaking it works fine.

I assume you are talking about NH rooms. I can maybe see someone paying to find out a whale is playing in a PLO game or 1/3 match a stack. But that would benefit 1-2 floors at most. Most are better off getting $30/hr vs. $15 plus tips as a floor. Now if it meant they couldn't dual rate, I can see many of them being upset by that.

Floors in general can't (shouldn't) except tips as it could lead to a (mis)conception that a Player may receive favorable rulings.

Where Floors do accept tips from Players I'm surprised that they are even accounted for in their reported income, especially in Vegas.

This is a topic where Rooms will vary quite a bit. If Dealers are tipping out Floors you also could have issues with how the rotation is set up if certain Dealers tip out more to the Floors or just produce more tips in general, so they get the better tables and it's all good in the long run.

Then you also have the Dual Rate situations.

Certainly a drastic change in policy that may throw Players off balance for a short time as well.

In my main Rooms the Floors must carry tips in the palm of their hand .. face up .. and they go 'somewhere'. Most of the Floors will direct a tip to a Dealer so they don't have to mess with the procedures. Floors pocketing a tip is grounds for dismissal. GL

IMO floor, including dual rate working floor, should not be tipped. I have not seen rulings affected by tipping. But I have seen ans heard of seating issue, table changes, giving calls about games (though I am not sure how I feel on this as it doesn’t impact me), etc. At min it can be an appearance issue.

I agree with the idea that floors should not be tipped. However, the reasoning really would also apply to dealers - they certainly have the opportunity to favor one player over another, and ideally we would like them to be unbiased in all their actions.

I tried to tip a floor last night in one of the NH rooms, and he said he couldn't accept it because of the pay increase. Earlier, I had asked him whether he still deals (not knowing about the pay change at that point), and he said yes, but he tries to get out of those shifts. Maybe the floor work is easier, or maybe the new pay differential makes that much of a difference.

"Tips" can easily become "bribes" like jumping lists and being given preferential treatment (just like in politics).