How Much Should You Tip on a Big Bad Beat Jackpot?

Just to state the obvious right up front, I did not win any money from a bad beat jackpot. However, it is one of those things that recreational poker players dream about. If only ...

In a recent post, blogger Pete P. Peters noted a nice score he won on video poker and speculated as to an appropriate tip for the attendant who took care of the hand-paid jackpot. It got me wondering about a topic that surfaces from time to time: how much should a person tip on a bad beat jackpot? I am not so much concerned about smaller jackpots, but what about a big one -- a REALLY big one?

The two poker rooms closest to me, Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria, IL and Harrah's Joliet have sizable bad beat jackpots. The loser of the bad beat hand would currently receive almost $50,000 at Par-A-Dice and over $300,000 at Harrah's Joliet. Yowsa!

So, imagine that you the loser in the bad beat jackpot hand. You are stoked. The place is going crazy. And then you think, "how much should I tip the dealer?"

I play mostly $1/2 NL Hold 'em, and at most places, the average customer tokes the dealer $1 on a "regular" pot. If the pot is pretty big in size, many players will tip more than $1. But what do you do when you win a huge jackpot?

Keep in mind that the government is going to gobble up a significant portion for most people. Also, it would not be unusual for many poker players to have a modest positive ROI or perhaps a negative ROI. The jackpot would help you catch up on months or years of beats.

I have invited a few poker dealer friends to post their thoughts, but ... what would you do?

Update from Somewhere South of Chicago

Just a quick life update since I have not been posting with any regularity lately.

I have been feeling pretty good the past week after having some weeks where I felt like total crap. I am sure that a decent amount of it was due to mourning the loss of my mother and some of the associated difficulties surrounding that. The next part will be challenging as I deal with the aftermath of the passing. I hope to consult with a specialist attorney this next week to make some progress in terms of my mother's estate. I don't want to go into any detail here, but some things in my future are likely to be a real pain in the butt.

A hopeful thing family-wise is that my wife has a job interview tomorrow. We have great hopes that she will be offered the position. The job would likely not be as ideal (except for the supervisor) as the last one, but she would possibly receive a 20-25% bump in pay, which certainly would make me happy!

I have this coming week off before work hits its extremely busy time and my life becomes challenging. thundering36 and I will be going to two White Sox-Cubs games this week, one at The Cell and one at Wrigley Field. The trip might also include an overnight stay at Harrah's Joliet.

My 2016 poker success seems to continue to go up and down. My last session I played some $1/2 Pot Limit Omaha. It was amazing how much more I felt the need to concentrate on the play. However, I learned a lot and will be better equipped to play it the next time. I dumped a little in Omaha and a little in $1/2 NL Hold 'em. I was embarrassed to need some slot luck to mitigate my losses.

My next Las Vegas trip is set for August 26-31. I plan to take my wife with this trip (a rare occurrence), but if she gets the teaching job she is interviewing for, I will have to go solo (unless thundering36 begs to go along)!

In the meantime, I will continue to keep up on social media sites and get ready for the work dog days of August.

Cheers!

28 Years Ago Today ...

... I was fortunate enough to get married to a woman who learned to put up with all my bullshit over the years. But what was that time really like?

Our wedding was scheduled for a Saturday at noon. We were both living in Springfield, IL at the time, with most of my family living in west suburban Chicago and most of my wife's family living in northern Wisconsin. Everything seemed to be planned out pretty well. My big night was the Thursday before -- my bachelor party.

I got together with a group of my friends and we hit the bars. There was a late night stop at Deja Vu, the local strip joint that at least promised you a chance of getting out and back home alive. I knew I was pretty drunk when one one the dancers came up to me and asked me for money ... and I actually got out my wallet. As I opened it up she was saying "Yeah - there's a ten. That good." The strippers did their usual bachelor party routine -- got me up on stage, had me take my shirt off, and then danced around me and rubbed up against me. I still have a polaroid picture somewhere. It ended up being a really fun night. And then there was Friday.

Oh my goodness! I had never felt so sick in my life. My family was coming into town for the rehearsal dinner and I felt totally like crap. I couldn't help with much of anything. The only thing I had to eat the entire day was a chicken leg. To make matters worse, my tux didn't fit properly and I had to have it altered. It would be ready for me -- when the store opened up the next morning at 10:00 a.m.! So I had to hope that my pants fit correctly and was picking them up two hours before the wedding. Sheesh!

On Saturday morning, I was pretty friggin' nervous, as you might guess. I decided to go to the tux rental store at 9:15 a.m. just to keep my anxiety level down. Around 9:30, a guy came to work at the shop. He said "I had a feeling you'd be waiting for me, so I came in early." Dang -- what a life saver. I got my pants and headed back to my house. My younger brother, Dan, was in stitches because I was so nervous. I was pacing back and forth, which surprised him because he always saw me as being calm in almost any circumstances.

Once we got to the church, two of my friends -- college students at the two-year school I worked at -- told me that there was a car that was running right outside the church in case I wanted to make a last-minute dash for freedom. It was tempting!

The wedding ceremony, which was a Catholic mass, took just over an hour, as I recall. There is one part of the ceremony where the bride goes in front of a statue of the Blessed Virgin, kneels and prays for guidance in being a good wife. She seemed to be there forever. Of course, my friends all kidded me afterward, saying that she needed the extra time since I was such a dick!

We had a reception for about 300 people. There were lots of relatives and many of the students that I worked with on a daily basis. Still not feeling right, I had nothing to eat at my own wedding reception. The guests all got a great bonus because there was a mistake in the food order. Instead of having fried chicken and beef for 300 people, we had fried chicken for 300 people and roast beef for 300 people. Everyone at the reception was able to take home a big plate of food if they wanted.

After the reception, there was the tricky matter of getting to our hotel for the wedding night. One of my friends was determined to mess with us that night, so I had reservations made at several hotels in town, then canceled all but one right after the reception. I borrowed my Dad's car so that my friends couldn't find me by looking for my car. I thought I had all my bases covered. We checked into the Ramada Renaissance Hotel at had a room reserved on one of the upper floors -- the nice limited access section. We opened the door of our room, and within 30 seconds our phone was already ringing. Shit! The hotel operator told us that we had a message from a Mr. E. E. Springs. My bride said "What?" I replied "That is Sharp (my friend) trying to be funny. As in the noise of the bed springs during sex is ee ... ee ... ee."

We told hotel security that we were not accepting guests under any circumstances and that they should feel free to kick out people who came looking for us downstairs. Sharp, who was a relatively new attorney, was paranoid about being involved in "moral turpitude," and paraded the group out of the building. From our 19th floor room we could see our disappointed friends heading back to their cars!

We ordered room service, as I was finally able to eat. In about 48 hours all that I had to eat was that solitary chicken leg, so I was starving, as you might expect.

So, fast forward 28 years, three kids, lots of great memories and our share of difficult and challenging times. That's where we are today. We went out for breakfast and are going out to a popular steak house for dinner tonight. Hopefully, our health and good times will continue over the next several years. As I did 28 years ago, I consider myself a pretty lucky guy.

Finally ... I Am Back

I can't believe that it has been almost three weeks since my last post. At that time, my family was waiting for my mother to pass. Unbelievably, after being admitted to the hospice inpatient center and essentially being ready to die, my mother lived for a week without food and water. It was a very difficult time for my family, as you might understand. Thankfully, she finally passed away on Thursday, June 16. My wife and I were hoping that she would not pass on the 17th, which is my son's birthday.

I came back home on Friday the 17th, but was too physically and emotionally drained for us to go out for my son's birthday that night. Instead, we went out Saturday night for an all you can eat Korean BBQ dinner. This was the selection by my son, a foodie who greatly enjoyed the night.

My mom's visitation was Monday, June 19 late afternoon and evening, and her funeral and burial was the next morning/afternoon. I was fortunate to have several of my close friends from work come up for one or the other, and was able to reconnect with many of my cousins, aunts, uncles and other relatives I had not seen for ages. It is amazing how time flies.

I also got in several poker sessions at Harrah's Joliet and Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria over the past two weeks, and showed a nice profit for them. I was back at work for one week, which was quite a struggle. I feel like I have been living in a fog the past week. I have made dumb mistakes like forgetting to sign a check and adding up two numbers wrong. I hope I am out of the fog or at least almost there.

I have a number of things hanging over my head, and was hoping to get away next week. I just don't know if the time is right yet. I already cancelled a trip to Las Vegas from last month and also a trip that I was taking to New Orleans with my wife. She is vacationing in Arizona right now, so I do have some leeway in what to do. I planned to do some things with my kids, but right now I just seem to be living in a big bubble of indecision.

Such has been my life the past three weeks and extending to six weeks. You know it has been bad when a flooded basement can't crack the top two list of bad things that have recently happened to you.

And once again, a huge THANK YOU for my friends who connected with me in one way or another during the previous difficult three weeks. I feel fortunate to have so many friends I have met in person and/or virtually due to poker and my blog. I heard from a lot of my current friends and also many whom I do not interact with much anymore. I am also fortunate to have a great job and to work with many wonderful people. All this made the recent downswing in my life much easier to handle.

So ... it is time to turn the corner and start resuming some semblance of my regular life. The journey continues, although with a little less enthusiasm, at least for now.