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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>