2007 World Series of Poker Player of the Year Tom Schneider walked away two bracelets richer after the month and a half of poker orgy that recently concluded with Jerry Yang's inside straight made on the river. The Rio and Harrah's awarded 55 bracelets to 54 people of different poker skills and bankrolls. Not mentioned were the thousands that entered the various tournament, paid their entry fees, and quietly slinked off into the hot, dry Vegas air with nothing more then a Milwaukee Best cup with melting ice cubes and remains of a mixed drink that failed to calm the nerves after taking a bad beat.

One thing those unfortunate losers don't realize is that they did leave something more then their $1,500 to $50,000 entry fee at the cashier windows to be awarded to the fortunate few who cashed in their respective tournaments:

They tipped the staff.

Of the $1,500 entry fee, $135 of it was withheld for the floor and dealers to be pooled together for those who ran a calming sea of organized confusion. But, some people think that the winner of the Main Event "stiffed" the dealers when advised not to add a secondary tip to the dealers. Here's the "Donkey Bomber" Schneider writing for Pokerati to give his well-thought two cents on the subject (be sure to read the comments section as well):

Some of you say that you want to get a breakdown of what Harrah's takes out of the pot and how much the dealers make. It's none of your business. Some of you have done some horrendous math which indicates that dealers for the main event only made $10.15 per hour, hogwash. Hey, I've never used that word before. That was fun. How can you divide the total tip by 700 people working 11 days? I didn't notice 700 dealers at the final table.

Do you know how much the person at the Gap makes when you go in to buy your plaid shorts? Do you know how much the guy makes that is changing the oil in your Yugo? How much does the Slot Manager at Caesar's Palace make? Who cares about any of this, and who cares how much dealers make except for dealers and the people hiring them?

What should a dealer make? I say pay them whatever they need to be paid to attract reasonably talented people. The answer I'm guessing is probably somewhere between $20 and $35 per hour. For a full time employee, that's an annual salary between $41,600 and $72,800.

Excepting errors, does the dealer have anything to do with me winning or losing a tournament? If you say yes, start collecting stamps not playing poker. Since the answer is no, why should I tip them? Do I want them to make a good wage? Of course I do. So here's the plan. In this plan I will use the WSOP as the example (continued at Pokerati):