To put things in context, I'm from Australia. It's not customary to tip for very much. Small tip at a restaurant, and strippers is about the only places I can think of off the bat.

I'm currently participating in some rather heated discussion in a universitas21 forum (a global meeting place for exchange and international students) over tipping and whether one should do it. I'm in the minority and getting attacked left and right. So I want to run my argument through here. I'd really like to know what as poker players, you think - firstly about the tipping question, and secondly, about my position and argument. If I can get some more ammunition to support my argument that would be a bonus. Because I'm getting outgunned by the masses here. Cheers

Basically, the arguments for tipping can be divided into the ideological and the pragmatic.

(Pragmatic arguments)

1. If you don't tip, you'll get bad service.

1a. I can't refute this argument. It's what makes me tip in certain situations. What a shame. We live in a society where bribery is unacceptable. Isn't this just a subtle form of bribery?

1b. Tips are not always visible. Will waiters actually know how much I tipped all the time? And besides, if it's customary to tip *after* receiving the service, I can't get bad service any more, can I?

1c. Tipping degenerates into a "game". The point is to tip as conspicuously as I can (but then if I do it too conspicuously, it backfires). Is it better to tip a little but in small increments? A lot in large increments? Right at the start before getting service? Buy in lots of 50c/$1 chips on a 5/10 table to make dealers think I'm a tipper? Tip just enough that I can fly under the radar and not get singled out for particularly hostile treatment?

(Ideololical arguments)

1. The people providing service are inadequately compensated for their work, so you really really ought to tip. (For extra effect: the IRS assumes they get paid tips. So if they don't get them, they're in real shit)

1a. It's not my fault if their pay is shit. My heart bleeds, but it's up to the employer to pay them properly. Shame on the employer!

1b. Market forces should determine the price of labour - tipping screws up the system. Assume no tips. Then people would demand higher wages. If employers didn't want to pay those wages, they'd cut staff numbers. But before they did that, they would foresee that with less staff, customers will leave and they make less money. So the market conditions and supply and demand for personel in differing industries will determine wage levels. If there's too much supply in waitresses, they will get paid little. So they should - there's too many! The low wages will cause them to do other things... maybe sell things or become prostitutes, or miners, or go to another country with better wages (they're better because they need waitresses more). By tipping, we create a market imperfection and cause distortions in the wage levels, thereby we screw up the invisible hand of the market that allocates resources efficiently. (I'm a microeconomics tutor/lecturer. I've tried my best to explain my point. If you don't understand but want to know, tell me and I'll try to explain some more)

2. If employers had to pay a living wage to their employees, you'd just end up paying more for your purchase/service

2a. Great! That's the way it should be! Instead of charging me $10 for a steak and "expecting" me to pay $1.50 tip, just pay the waiters properly and charge me $11.50 if that's what it takes to deliver your product with a reasonable profit! Charge me 6% instead of 5% rake or 12% instead of 10%. When I teach piano, I don't charge $30 and hope they'll gimme tips. I charge $45 and don't accept tips.

2b. I go frequently to a restaurant. www.lentilasanything.com - it's a pay as you feel restaurant. Would I pay them nothing? Of course not! I consider myself fairly generous though I would have no way of verifying because i don't know what others pay. But there's a difference. Because the whole meal is pay as you feel. Why should the cost of food, profit for the business, insurance, rent, etc. - why should everything else be non-discretionary but one element of the product I'm receiving (and the service is a non-divisible component of any product) is up to me? Either the whole thing is discretionary or none of it.

3. A system of tipping means you can reward good service and punish bad service. It gives employees the incentive to provide good service.

3a. Maybe. But in most industries the tips are pooled. This virtually kills the incentive argument. I can't reward an exceptionally good employee with tips, and they don't have the incentive to work hard because they can just ride along other people's effort. But if everyone thinks like this, they're not motivated by tips any more. A classic tragedy of the commons argument here.

3b. There are other ways to give feedback. Why not feedback forms, for example?

3c. Do we really go through a mental marksheet in our head and award a grade for service and pay our tips exactly according to that grade?

3d. Policing employees and making them work hard and providing incentives to do so is not my job! Again, the employer and specifically their HR department should be doing that.

4. The custom is so well entrenched, there's nothing we can do about it. If you try to "rebel" or "reform" the system, all you're doing is punishing the employees that don't deserve punishment

4a. I don't have a very good response, except to say I object to the "damn, it's too hard to change, just live with it" line in principle. It's a bad attitude. Where would we be if Mandela, Teresa, and Gandhi thought like that?

4b. If that's the only valid or undisputed argument available to the tippers, then aren't we all a bit irrational? I for one don't just want to be a conformist to peer pressure.

4c. Reform isn't that hard. For example, raise the minimum wages (with associated negative market effects, but that's not the point here), and then employees don't *depend* on wages any more

That's it: my refutation of tipping. Please flame away. I'm awaiting your counter-arguments. Am I just cheap?