Tipping in Las Vegas, Who Gets What and How Much

Twelve dollars an hour is the number behind every tip in this town: Nevada's flat minimum wage, paid in full to dealers, servers and valets before a single gratuity. Tips are what turn that into a living, and everyone working a Strip shift knows the customary figures to the dollar. So should you.

The cheat sheet

• Valet: $2–5 when the car comes back, more on a 110-degree afternoon. The parking charge on your folio is the hotel's and doesn't count as the tip.
• Bell desk: $2 for the first bag, $1 for each extra one.
• Housekeeping: $2–5 per night, left every morning; $5 is the common Strip figure.
• Dealers: a $1–5 chip now and then while you're winning, or a bet placed for them. Nothing is expected on a losing session.
• Casino cocktail servers: $1–2 per drink, in cash, "free" drinks included.
• Slot attendants: about $20 on a hand pay, which in 2026 means a jackpot of $2,000 or more, scaling up with the size of the win.
• Bartenders: $1–2 a drink, $2 or more for a built cocktail, or 15–20% of a tab.
• Restaurant servers: 15–20% of the pre-tax bill; 18–20% is the Strip norm.
• Buffet staff: about 10%, or a couple of dollars per person.
• Rideshare and taxis: 10–20%, or $2–5 on a short Strip hop.
• Tour guides: roughly 10–20% of the tour price, which works out to $10–20 per person for a full day.
• Pool attendants: $1–2 for towels and chairs, $5 if they set you up somewhere good; cabanas usually carry a gratuity already.
• Show ushers: nothing. Showroom drink servers: $1–2 per drink.

Why the amounts look the way they do

A server in Texas can legally be paid $2.13 an hour, with tips making up the rest under the federal tip credit. A server in Las Vegas gets the full $12 before the first table sits down, because Nevada allows no tip credit at all: the state minimum applies to dealers, cocktail servers, valets and bartenders alike, with gratuities on top. So nobody here is living on your 20 percent the way a server in a tip-credit state might be. What tips do in Las Vegas is turn a $12 job into a middle-class one, and the customs below are calibrated to that.

Dealer tips, called tokes, are pooled at most casinos and split among everyone on the shift, so the $5 chip you slide to a great dealer is shared with the one who barely spoke. A couple of Downtown houses, Binion's and Four Queens, let dealers keep their own, and Rio moved to a 50/50 split in January 2025, but those are exceptions. Bottle service, cabanas and larger dinner parties often arrive with 18–20 percent gratuity already added, and some Strip restaurants print a 3–5 percent "CNF" line (a concession and franchise fee) that is not a tip. Read the check before you add anything; our hidden fees guide lists what to look for.

At the hotel

Valet, bell desk and concierge

Hand the valet $2–5 when your car comes back. Drop-off is the exception: if you want the car kept up front for a quick turnaround, tip then as well. Most big Strip resorts also charge for valet, $40–50 a day in 2026, and that fee goes to the hotel, so it doesn't replace the tip. In July, a valet sprinting across a black lot in 110-degree heat is a $5–10 situation. Bell staff get $2 for the first bag and $1 for each additional one, whichever direction the luggage is going; if they store your bags after checkout, tip again on pickup. The concierge is tipped for results: $5–10 for a reservation or show tickets, $15 or more if they pulled off something hard. Timing around arrival and departure, including when the bell desk earns its keep, is in our check-in and checkout guide.

Housekeeping

Leave $2–5 a night, every morning rather than in one lump at the end. Attendants rotate, so a Friday envelope never reaches the person who cleaned on Tuesday. On the Strip, $5 is the figure most often given, and it goes up in a suite or after a messy night. Put it somewhere unmistakable, on the pillow or the desk with a note that says "housekeeping," because loose cash on a nightstand looks like something you forgot and staff are trained to leave it alone. Daily cleaning itself is back at most Strip resorts after years of "on request only": the Culinary Union's November 2023 contracts with MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts wrote it back in at their properties. Housekeeping policies still differ by hotel, so ask at check-in rather than assuming. The resort fee doesn't cover any of this. That $45–55 nightly charge buys Wi-Fi and pool access, and none of it is a gratuity for the person making your bed; the full breakdown is in Las Vegas Resort Fees Explained.

The $20 trick, assessed

The technique is a folded twenty between your ID and credit card at check-in, plus a question about whether any complimentary upgrades are available. Front-desk agents on the Strip see it constantly. In 2026 it still produces results sometimes: at mid-tier properties with unsold inventory on a weeknight, a higher floor or a Strip view is a realistic outcome, and if there's nothing to give, the bill usually comes back to you. It's far less reliable than the internet suggests. Luxury resorts often hand the money back on principle, some hotels prohibit front-desk staff from taking tips at all, a sold-out Saturday has nothing to hand out at any price, and $20 buys a lot less room than it did when the trick first spread. The lower-drama version works about as well: ask politely for an upgrade with no cash involved, or ask what a paid upgrade costs at the desk, which is frequently cheaper than booking the higher category in advance. If you're set on trying it, look up the property's room types first so you're asking for something specific instead of "anything better."

On the casino floor

A chip slid across the felt is the whole transaction. Casino tips scale with what you've won, and nobody expects one from a player who just dropped $300 at blackjack.

Dealers

Tip in chips, at the table, while you're ahead. The easy habit is to slide a $1–5 chip to the dealer every so often, or to put a small bet out for them next to your own so you win and lose together; dealers like that version because it can grow. At blackjack a few dollars after a good run is normal, and $5 chips are the unit at $25-and-up tables. At roulette, around 5 percent of a meaningful win is the local rule of thumb, and you tell the dealer before the spin if a chip is theirs. At craps the custom is to tip when you leave the table rather than mid-roll, and a wager announced as "five for me, one for the dealer" is understood everywhere. Poker dealers get a $1 chip from a pot you win. Over a session, 2–5 percent of what you took off the table is a generous evening's total, and most guides land in that range.

Cocktail servers

Casino drinks are comped while you're playing, but the server carrying them works for tips. Hand over $1–2 per drink, in cash, when the glass lands. Servers remember who tips, and in a busy pit that shows up as how fast the next round arrives. Have small bills before you sit down: the casino-floor ATM charges a stiff fee for the privilege, and a $20 broken at a table comes back as chips.

Hand pays and slot attendants

Since January 1, 2026, a slot jackpot of $2,000 or more is paid by hand, with tax paperwork, by an attendant. The old $1,200 threshold had stood since 1977 and most online advice still quotes it; the federal figure rose to $2,000 for payments made in 2026 and is now indexed to inflation. The floor for a tip is about $20 on a jackpot near the threshold, and etiquette guides put the ceiling around 10 percent of the win, which nobody on the floor will hold you to. If an attendant holds your machine while you step away for a few minutes, $5 covers it.

Eating and drinking

Twenty percent is where most Strip diners land, and 15–20 percent of the pre-tax total is the etiquette baseline. Check the printed total before you write anything in: some Strip restaurants add that 3–5 percent CNF line, and larger parties often carry an automatic gratuity near the total, in which case you add nothing or round up for a standout server. Buffets run on a different scale: about 10 percent, or a couple of dollars per person for whoever clears plates and keeps drinks coming. Bartenders get $1–2 a drink for a beer or a simple pour and $2 or more when someone actually built the cocktail; on a running tab, 15–20 percent at the end. Bottle service at clubs and dayclubs nearly always folds 18–20 percent gratuity into the minimum, so the "$500 bottle" is already $600. Where to spend that money is in our dining guide and, for the bar side, the best cocktail bars in Las Vegas.

Pools, shows, tours and the ride there

Pool decks: $1–2 to the attendant who hands you towels or finds two chairs together, $5 if they haul loungers into the shade for you. A cabana or daybed at a dayclub usually comes with gratuity already built into the price, so check the terms before doubling it; the pools and dayclubs guide explains the two kinds of pool and what needs booking. Show ushers aren't tipped, in Las Vegas or on Broadway; a thank-you is the custom. Drink servers working the showroom get the usual $1–2 a drink.

Tour guides on a full-day Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam run are tipped roughly 10–20 percent of the ticket, which works out to $10–20 a head on a coach tour and more on a small-group or private van; if there's a separate driver, they split it. Browse the tours themselves, or compare helicopter against bus before you pick. Rideshare and taxi drivers get 10–20 percent, and on a five-minute Strip hop that means $2–5 rather than a percentage; airport curb help is $1–2 a bag. The ways in from Harry Reid are laid out in airport to the Strip, and the rest of the transit picture in getting around Las Vegas.

Cash, cards and the no-cash problem

Bring small bills. Housekeepers, cocktail servers, valets and bell staff are tipped in cash almost everywhere, and $1 and $5 notes are the working currency. Restaurant and bar tabs take a card tip like anywhere else, usually with 18, 20 and 22 percent buttons on the terminal; check whether the suggested amounts are computed on the post-tax total. Dealers take chips only. Some hotels have started placing a QR code in the room that routes a card tip to that day's attendant; if yours has one, use it, and if not, cash is the only thing that reaches the housekeeper. Get that cash before you arrive or at a bank branch off the Strip: casino-floor ATMs stack a high flat fee on top of your own bank's, and a cash advance at the cage is worse.

What it adds up to

For two people over three nights: $15 to housekeeping, about $10 to the bell desk in and out, $10 to a valet, $60 on two $150 dinners, $15 across ten casino drinks and $10 in rideshare tips comes to roughly $120, before anything you choose to toke at the tables. Call it $40–50 a day for a couple and fold it into the trip budget alongside the resort fee and parking; how much a Las Vegas trip costs has the full ledger.