I'm not understanding the Denny's thing. There was a mandatory 25% tip there? Huh?

Regarding the rest, I detest dealers in pit games who think they're automatically entitled to a percentage of your win, not understanding that you're (probably) playing -EV games and are probably a good deal down even when you win a "big hand".

Funny story about the dealer bitching about getting tipped $1k on some jackpot win, so the guy pulled the tip back. I would have done so, too.

The cruise ship thing is a bit different. On cruises, the employees are low paid and from poor third world countries, for the most part.

However, as the cruise lines have all instituted the "auto tip" for around $14 per day per person, now most people don't tip anymore, figuring they already tipped.

The problem is that this isn't really a tip. The $14 is pocketed by the cruise line, and in fact that's used to allow the cruise to pay them a less-than-maritime-minimum-wage base salary.

Also -- and this is important -- if you opt out of the $14/day auto tip, they do NOT take it out of the paychecks of the employees. It comes out of the pocket of the cruise line. The employees get fixed pay.

However, if you dare mention that to another cruiser (whether onboard or on an online discussion forum) that you are considering opting out of the auto-tip, you get a long speech about how you're screwing the hardworking, low-paid employees.

When you explain that the opting out doesn't actually come out of the pockets of the employees, they either pretend not to understand or tell you that you're wrong.

When you explain that you're taking the money you're opting out and individually tipping employees you're interfacing with, they shriek, "But what about the behind-the-scenes employees you don't interface with? What about them??"

You get these sanctimonious responses because people mostly tip to feel good about themselves, not to actually help. So when you shatter their world by telling them that their $14/day cruise ship "tip" is actually being pocketed by the cruise line, they flip out and find every excuse in the book to assure themselves that they're indeed tipping and can still feel good about themselves.

As much as I like to criticize Europe, they have it right with the tipping culture, which has gotten out of control in the US.

Tipping culture is stupid.

Employees should be paid a proper wage for their position, and then not expected to be receiving tips.

The problem is that it's very hard to bring up this topic without people acting like you're a heartless asshole.