LAS VEGAS–The WSOP dealers, as mentioned before, were wanting to see Jerry Yang win for the sake of a bigger tip. He couldn\’t have had a reputation as a big tipper — because as a guy playing in his first WSOP and with no noted accomplishments high-stakes or otherwise, how could they know? Perhaps they saw him as a mark … an inexperienced player who had already committed 10 percent of his winnings to charity might be easily persuaded to \”give a little back,\” if you know what I\’m sayin\’.
Not sure what Yang\’s intentions were as he walked into the payouts room … but Chris Ferguson reportedly joined him — not because he was invited, but because he was a Full Tilt guy looking after a Full Tilt player. When the payout ladies asked what he would like to leave for the dealers, Ferguson supposedly informed him that he had already given 2 percent. Nolan Dalla corrected him, saying, \”Actually it\’s 1.8 percent.\” [Ed. Note: Inaccurate as originally reported. We regret/apologize for the error lazy journalism.]
At that point Ferguson pointed out what that came out to — $148,500 by my calculations, but not certain that\’s the number he cited — and said, according to a mostly reliable source who was in the payouts room, \”So I recommend zero.\”
And so that\’s what Yang left — either $148,500ish or $0, depending on how you look at it.
The dealers were a bit pissed — probably moreso because they had their high hopes yanked from under them (just like they did last year when rumors circulated that Jamie Gold was going to tip $1 million) than because of the actual dollars in play. From any extra tips left at the WSOP, 30 percent goes to the floor staff, and 70 percent is distributed to dealers based on the number of \”downs\” they put in. Though I may need to doublecheck the math — Chris Ferguson is better at math than I am — a tip of, say, an additional $100k would\’ve meant anywhere between an extra $250 and $500 for main event dealers.
Regardless of how the exact numbers work out, it brings up a very fair issue for discussion about how to handle tipping of big tournament wins. Harrah\’s, after all, does indeed take out money to guarantee that WSOP dealers can earn a fair wage. But does that mean it should be left up to the \”kinder\” players to subsidize their income. I know a lot of pros would rather have tournament officials deduct a higher percentage, and then attempt to enforce a no-tipping policy.
Of course you can\’t stop someone from finding a person who provided them excellent service and rivers and giving them a little something extra. And a few pros seem to be aware of this.
Second-place finisher Tuan Lam, for example, reportedly went around to floor staff, dealers, and crew to give them direct tips in cash. In the neighborhood of $200. Of all these tokes he may or may not have spread around, it\’s hard to know how many of them actually made it into the official shared tournament tipping pool, and how many went directly into the pockets of temporary employees who felt they had it coming to them.