A great little clip from Oprah’s OWN network, where Dr. Phil, Suze Orman, Dr. Oz and the ever present Gayle King take on a guy who doesn’t believe in tipping. See it HERE.

A Tip20! Original Article, by Tom Mason

When you play casino games you will most often be offered free beverages. Then there comes the dilemma… to tip or not to tip?

At the end of the day, tipping is still a voluntary practice but it is customary and relied on for income by those in the industry just as they are by restaurant servers. Without tips from patron, the workers are very underpaid for the work they do. Also keep in mind that the IRS will assume that these employees are earning tips and will tax accordingly.

At a casino, cash as well as chips are generally acceptable for tips. For dealers, it is best to tip always with chips.

In blackjack, the typical method for tipping is to place an additional bet at the front of your betting box. Don’t tip so much or so frequently that you significantly shift the odds of the game. If you’re betting $5 for yourself, a $1 bet for the dealer once or twice an hour, or when you’re winning, will do. If you win the hand, the dealer will get a $2 tip. If you lose, the house gets the money.

While playing roulette it is common practice to give the dealer a chip after hitting a 35-1 single-number payoff. Never hand it directly to the dealer, as dealers are not allowed to take money or chips from a player’s hand. Put it on the table and tell the dealer it’s a tip.

Tipping for slots is less common, but if you hit a large, hand-paid jackpot, and have received good, timely service, it is nice to tip.

Those playing Craps sometimes place bets for the dealers. Often, this is done either by having the dealer place a specific bet “for the boys”. Bets on 11 or the field are frequent choices, or by placing a bet on one of the “hard ways” and telling the dealer it goes both ways. That is, a $10 hard six both ways means the player is betting $5 for himself and $5 for the dealers that two threes will come up before a seven and before any other six. If you want to give the dealers the best chance to win, place a pass line bet for the boys.

Until recently in all UK casinos gaming staff were not allowed to accept tips. From August 2008 tipping of all employees is permitted in casinos.

Also please don’t forget to tip at the buffet. At least 10% of the tab or a dollar per guest if the server has been attentive with your beverages and plate clearing.

Whether or not it is just great Karma to tip at a casino we will leave for another day, but while gambling, a bit of extra good Karma probably couldn’t hurt.

Casino Tipping Guide

• Cocktail Waitresses $1/every drink or two.
• Dealers $5/hr.
• Slot Attendants (hand pays) 0.5% to 1% or $1-2 chip when they repair your machine.
• Roulette dealers – $5+ chip per session.
• Keno writers/runners – $1+ for first ticket. If you play a lot, tip more. 5% if you win.
• Poker dealers – $5+ chip per session. You may tip 10% of your winnings, but not to exceed $25.
• Craps or blackjack dealer – $5+ chip per session. If you prefer, you can place a side bet for the dealer up to 10%. The size depends upon the table’s minimum bet; however, it need not ever exceed $25. At a $5 table, the tip would be a $1 chip. At a $25 table, use a $5 chip.
• Of course there is a benefit to on-line casinos, you need not tip at all!

Note: At tables, you should only feel obligated to tip when you are winning, not if you are losing that is understood.

If you celebrated yesterdays national food holiday, drink a beer day, and went out and celebrated by enjoying a few too many beers, like us, than you will be happy to know that today is the perfect follow-up holiday. Cure that hangover and get back to work for National Coffee Day!

If you just love and live on coffee like the rest of us, than today if your day as well, Happy National Coffee Day!

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark, slightly acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa. Green (unroasted) coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world. Coffee can have a stimulating effect on humans due to its caffeine content. It is one of the most-consumed beverages in the world. A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on providing coffee and tea as well as light snacks. From a cultural standpoint, coffeehouses largely serve as centers of social interaction: the coffeehouse provides social members with a place to congregate, talk, write, read, entertain one another, or pass the time, whether individually or in small groups of 2 or 3.

A few general rules of thumb from Tip20! for tipping etiquette at the café – Most often at the café upon checkout you will see it sitting there in the corner near the register. The tip jar. Just sitting there, looking sort of hopeful and unauthorized with it’s hand made label emblazoned on the front. What is the etiquette for that little jar? Well this tends to be a tipping gray area and the answers are a diverse as coffee drinkers are.

Make money in the coffee shop business!

Baristas are performing a service for you, much the way a fast food restaurant does and while it is indeed a service it is not the same as being waited on for 1-3 hours by a dedicated waiter or waitress so the same tipping rules do not really apply. Tip jars in general are a way for you to express your gratitude to the barista for what they do and it is a particularly nice gesture to throw them your change or perhaps a bit extra as many in that industry are working at or around minimum wage. They will appreciate it and you get to feel good about yourself and frankly it doesn’t hurt your Karmic universe either! So you should not feel obligated to tip, but tipping is a good thing and we certainly encourage it.

Ever want to be a barista? Or at be a better barista? You can learn at the best online Coffee Barista Training Course. If you want a piece of the action and  make money running a coffee shop  you can  Find out how.

Coffee Trivia: Did you know the term “Hogwarts” now made famous by the Harry Potter series is the French word for coffeehouse (café) means a drink that turns you into a rabbit, offering a range of hot meals!

Here is a Coffee deal for you from our friends at Coffee For Less 5% off Coupon Code: CFLESS

Tip20!’s favorite coffee innovation ever is the Keurig K-Cup! K-cups are quick for before a long shift, you don’t need to run to a café before work, nor do you need to wait hours for coffee to brew a whole pot – of which you will only drink one or two cups, K-Cups are cheaper than buying a cup of coffee at the local café , and best of all, K-Cups taste great!

Our first Tip20! Poll addresses something that is neglected in most tipping vs. no-tipping arguments. If you don’t like tipping, what do you think a fair hourly  wage for servers should be?

Discuss below, also does your answer apply to bartenders as well? or would that change things?

by Alexis Jeffries
MONEY Magazine – Money Poll

It’s an annual dilemma: What’s an appropriate holiday tip for the people who serve you throughout the year? Etiquette expert Peggy Post recommends a gift of a week’s to a month’s pay for full time help like a nanny; and the cost of at least one visit for people who provide a regular, less frequent service, such as a hairstylist. But you probably also want to keep in line with what your neighbors are giving so you don’t look like a tightwad. In a MONEY poll, readers owned up to the tipping sums below; Post says they are suitably generous.

Average Tip

• Mail Carrier – $20
• Hair Dresser – $20
• Cleaning Person – $75
• Occasional Babysitter – $25
• Full-time Nanny – $270
• Gardener/Yard Worker – $50
• Newspaper Carrier – $15
• Garbage Collector – $20

“Jipped on the Tip” by Doreen Linder of the Allentown Headlines Examiner

When John Wagner and Leslie Pope visited the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, they never thought they would be leaving in a police car.  They never thought their service would be bad either.  Both kind of put a damper on a evening.

Lehigh Pub

Pope and Wagner went to have a night out with a group of friends.  They ordered wings, salad, and drinks. There food came over an hour later and they had to get up refill their drinks at the bar.  According to some reports, this waitress spent most her time outside the restaurant smoking.  When the bill came, they refused to pay the 18 percent gratuity that accompanied the bill because of the poor service which amounted to $16.00.

The Bethlehem police were called and the couple was arrested and charged with theft.

This case has made national news and one can see online on yelp.com that reviewers as far as Oregon are outraged about this couple’s arrest.  It is the subject of blogs accross the nation.  The question here is, “Should one have to pay a gratuity if the service was not good?”

A court date has been set for next month.

POINT

Add 10% or 15% to the bill? I think not
Posted By DENNIS THOMPSETT of TheSunTimes

My mother was a waitress at the Trio for years, but even so, I must admit, I don’t understand the idea of giving tips to people in restaurants. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

I don’t get it. Why am I expected to pay extra to have someone do their job in a pleasant and efficient manner?

And apparently I’m not the only Canadian with this feeling. In Florida and Los Angeles and Hawaii and Las Vegas and most of the other big tourist towns of the world, the natives hate Canadians because we’re just not big tippers.

Apparently we expect value for money.

To get a really memorable tip from me or from any other sensible Canadian, a waitress has to set herself on fire, cartwheel across the floor and deliver hot, heavy plates to the table with her feet. While whistling Dixie.

Otherwise, forget it.

I remember going on a cruise with my family years ago and, at the end, everybody expected a tip. And not just a little tip either. They all wanted $300 or $400 each. We got a circular about it before we disembarked. There were sure a lot of disappointed faces as we waved a fond farewell to that ship of fools.

The common argument is that these people depend on tips to make a living. Well here’s a tip: get a job that pays better. No one should have to depend on the kindness of strangers to support their families.

The only people who really benefit from tipping are restaurant owners who can continue to offer low pay and no benefits. Some places, like pizza joints, often pay nothing and the delivery guy only makes tips. In other parts of the world, or even here in Canada when you have a big crowd, they automatically add a tip on the bill. You have no say in it. You are, in fact, forced to pay the wages of the help in addition to paying for your food.

So here’s something to think about — every time you give a tip in a restaurant or bar, you are supporting an insidious kind of slavery. Low-wage slavery. Sweat-shop slavery. You are perpetuating a system where good people are chronically underpaid, in the hopes that the customer will subsidize that pay. Maybe.

It’s not all the restaurant owners’ fault. It’s your fault, too, for wanting to be well thought of by your waiter or waitress.

And here’s something else to think about for those sad sheep who give tips: There are all sorts of people who work just as hard for your custom, yet you never think of tipping them. Have you ever agonized about whether to give 10% or 15%% to the checkout person at the supermarket? To your bank teller? To the person in the convenience store? To the guy who reads your hydro meter? No? Well let me tell you something; they make the same kind of low wages that restaurant workers make. They often work harder. They’re often nice people. And they have families to support, too. Why don’t you subsidize them, if you buy into the flimsy arguments for tipping restaurant people?

And if you work in a restaurant and take tips, be aware that you’re essentially taking charity. You deserve better.

So what’s the answer? Only tip people who really need it.

I know it’s difficult to accept a new idea. Often you have to digest it a little at a time. So let me take you by the hand and lead you to a new life. First pick a bunch of people who are bitter, overweight, underpaid and shunned in social circles. Then send them a tip.

Address it to your poor Owen Sound Sun Times columnists. We’ll all share it and maybe get a crust of soggy bread to munch on.

Through our grateful tears.

————————————————————————————————-

COUNTER POINT

Letter to the Editor at TheSunTimes by Jesse Wilkinson

Contrarian off base about tipping

Editor:

Add 10% or 15% to the bill? I think so.

In reading Dennis Thompsett’s article on the exercise of tipping, two things became glaringly obvious: one that the Contrarian has never worked as a waiter himself (his attempt at insight using his mother didn’t cut it for me) and that two, he is writing after a bad experience, in which he feels the need to spout his flawed logic and spiteful naiveties.

It’s funny how a person who has no experience in an occupation can speak with such confident condemnation regarding said job. Waiters, waitresses and bartenders work very hard in a fast paced industry that demands you be personable, hard-working and able to “cartwheel across the floor and deliver hot, heavy plates” while singing birthday songs (not Dixie tunes).

Sorry they can’t light themselves on fire for your tip, Sir. I’m sure they’re all dying to impress you.

I agree that many other low paying jobs require hard work and admirable attributes but there is an expectation for good service when spending the night out for dinner.

If that expectation is not met, then you certainly shouldn’t feel compelled to tip. If you have a good experience and your server has been a part of that then they deserve a tip.

Servers make less than minimum wage, which Thompsett blames on the “slave-driving” restaurant owners, and therefore rely on tips to make the job affordable.

The notion that patrons are subsidizing the restaurant industry is flawed. If servers were paid a higher wage, then restaurants would need to charge more for their meals to cover the overhead, which would take the place of the tip anyways. As it stands right now Mr. Thompsett, you should keep quiet. You are riding on the backs of all the other tippers out there to ensure that you get cheaper menu prices and you don’t follow all the “sad sheep” and leave a tip yourself. If your ridiculous, demeaning argument influenced the industry, you would be shelling out a lot more of the precious bills and coins you seem to covet so closely.

I guess by your logic, no one should accept a year-end bonus because that is tantamount to charity as well. Servers are merely given tiny bonuses everyday is they have earned it for a job well done. They sure don’t receive anything of monetary value at the end of the year, merely the hope that they may possibly not have work Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day so that everyone else can go out and have a good time.

As for getting another job; well there aren’t many jobs one can work between five and midnight while trying to put themselves through university or college. I guess they should just absorb the increasing student fees and try not to keep on top of their debt.

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In your world Mr. Thompsett, many students would be graduating with an even heavier burden than they already have.

I know you really don’t believe all of what you said, because you are self-admittedly “The Contrarian” but for those people who may think your flawed logic makes sense, shame on you and shame on the Sun Times for printing your column.

Owen Sound has many restaurant owners who are struggling during these tougher times and many young, bright, energetic waiters and waitresses who work hard to ensure that when people want to have a good night out, they can.

If one does not enjoy their service, then they shouldn’t tip their server: it will help the waiters that truly strive to work hard and provide a valuable service.

I have lived and worked in other countries that do not subscribe to the culture of tipping and the level of service is far lower than here in Canada and I would hate to see that happen in our country.

I guess it depends on how much we value our ability to enjoy a night out and be taken care of after a long day. Maybe you need to get out a little more often, Mr. Thompsett, and while you’re at it, get to know your servers.

I’m sure you’ll find that they are working harder than you think. And it’s better you keep your tip if you think it’s charity. You’ve insulted enough people already. I can’t wait to see what industry you try to offer your brilliant insight into in your next column.

WARNING: BOTH VIDEOS CONTAIN STRONG LANGUAGE

The Complaint

Response Video