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IAG December 2015

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CASINO<br />

MARKETING<br />

A tipping point<br />

One thing that is very unique to the gaming industry is the high<br />

preponderance of tipped employees. Other service industries have<br />

some tipped employees but in gaming it seems almost everyone<br />

can make tips including, sometimes, managers.<br />

By Dennis Conrad<br />

Dennis Conrad is president<br />

and chief strategist for<br />

Raving Consulting Co, a fullservice<br />

marketing company<br />

specializing in assisting<br />

gaming organizations. He<br />

can be reached at +1 775 329<br />

7864 or by e-mail at dennis@<br />

ravingconsulting.com.<br />

Not many casino companies pay close attention<br />

to this “customer provided wage contribution,”<br />

other than to establish the necessary procedures<br />

and record keeping for it, ensure some fairness to<br />

tip earning opportunities among employees of the<br />

same job classification, and occasionally (usually among casino<br />

dealers who keep their own tips), try to ensure that tipped employees<br />

don’t earn too much and upset the whole wage scale applecart.<br />

Casino companies tend to like, or at least tolerate, such a<br />

pervasive tipping culture because, I suppose, the more a team<br />

member is tipped, the less a casino has to pay in base salary.<br />

Having been a tipped employee at several early jobs in my gaming<br />

career, I’m not sure how I feel about that.<br />

28<br />

inside asian gaming <strong>December</strong> <strong>2015</strong>

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