When playing more than one hand at a time, you must fully play out the first hand before going on to look at the cards in the next hand. The only exception to this is when the dealer is showing an Ace up and asks for insurance bets. In that situation, you can look at all your hands to see which ones you might want to place the insurance side bet on.

The final area of general table etiquette is tipping. Even though the drinks are complimentary, the serving waitress is not. It is customary to tip the waitress for her service. I usually don’t tip with every drink, but wait and tip a larger amount every other drink. The amount is up to you.

Another person who can be tipped is the dealer. Why you might want to tip dealers is discussed in detail in Post Four. This focuses on how to tip the dealers. The easiest way is simply to give the dealer a tip by placing the chip or money out on the felt between the betting square and the dealer and letting the dealer know it is for him or her.

A method many dealers prefer, and one that nets the dealer more money if you are a winning player, is to bet your tip for the dealer. This is done by placing the dealer tip between your wager and the dealer on the line of the betting square.

If you lose, the dealer collects both bets and will at least thank you in return. If you win, the dealer pays both bets separately, waits until you collect your winnings, and then picks up the tip and tip winnings. Find the best casino bonus offers at top blackjack casinos.

Dealer tips are often placed to the right of the dealer (your left) in a stack. Periodically, the pit boss will take the tips away for safekeeping. This safekeeping is necessary because many casinos don’t want dealers pocketing chips while dealing, and to keep the tips from being taken.

Once when I was playing at El Casino in Freeport, I saw a player sitting at third base take the dealer’s stack of chips. I believe it was an accident, though, because the player didn’t try to hide it or mix the stack with his chips. The tip stack was very close to the player’s chips, and the player was just fooling with the chips and picked up the second stack.

The dealer glanced over and noticed that his tips were missing and knew that the pit boss had not been by. Looking around, he spotted the second stack at third base and asked the player to return it. The player was extremely embarrassed, and returned the chips with a healthy tip as an apology. He then left after several hands.

No one moved a muscle. Typical, I thought, of the modern version of John and Jane Q. Public. The dealer evidently hadn’t seen what happened at first, but noticed I had only one card on the table as I started to bend down. He said, “Don’t worry about it” and called, “Card down” over his shoulder. I went ahead and picked up the card with a helpful, “I don’t mind.”

When the pit boss arrived, the dealer handed him the card and pointing to me said, “He got it.” The pit boss carefully looked over the card, then looked at me and gave it back to the dealer. Feeling stupid, I realized that players aren’t supposed to retrieve cards from off the table. An experienced friend told me later that cheaters will mark or switch cards underneath the table whenever possible. I must have looked touristy enough that they didn’t feel it was necessary to swap decks to see if I had pulled a switch.

Whenever a card goes off the table, tell the dealer and let the pit boss retrieve it.

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