Binion’s Broke Its Toke Pool to Staff the Swing Shift

Two downtown Las Vegas casinos let dealers go for their own, and swing-shift tokes jumped to $150 a day from $50 to $60. Glenn Casale, director of casino operations at Binion’s and Four Queens, said the switch also filled a swing crew that had been 30 to 40 percent short.

About 10 percent of the Binion’s team left because they wanted the old shared pool. The rest of the room, and the two pits, took the other side of that trade.

A $150 Swing Shift and a 10 Percent Exodus

Binion’s, owned with Four Queens by TLC Enterprises, told players on July 16, 2024, that a dealer who earned a toke would keep it. Casale said in mid-October that the pit had already been running that way for about three months. Four Queens followed on Oct. 28, 2024.

Going for their own is pit slang for keeping the tips dropped at your game instead of dumping them into a house pool. Most Las Vegas casinos still share tokes across a shift. Casale said TLC moved because dealers would earn more, and because a short swing shift was costing the floor its busiest hours.

THE BINION’S SWING TRADE

The raise was not a new hourly rate. Nevada still bars casinos from counting tips toward the minimum wage, so the house did not have to lift base pay to advertise a fatter night. It only had to stop spreading the busy table’s tokes across empty ones.

Casale called it a double effect. The dealers who liked a smoothed paycheck walked. Dealers from other casinos walked in. “So it attracted a lot of dealers from other casinos. We were 30 to 40 percent below where we needed to be on swing shift and now we have enough dealers over everything,” he said.

What Going for Their Own Means on the Felt

On a pooled crew, a hot craps table subsidizes Pai Gow. On an own crew, the person standing in the heat keeps the chips. Binion’s answer to that imbalance was not a new pool. It was a training bill and a clock.

Casale said the pits spent months teaching dealers every game so they could rotate every 30 minutes. “No one dealer gets stuck on any one game,” he said. “So if it’s a bad game or a dead game, like they don’t make a lot of money on Pai Gow for example, so you don’t stay on Pai Gow all day.”

That rotation is the fairness mechanism. It is also the cost. A dealer who only wanted one game, or who liked a quiet graveyard that still paid a day-shift average, lost the old insurance. A dealer who could bounce from blackjack to craps and sell the table kept the extra $90 to $100 a swing.

Players who already bet for a dealer they like get a cleaner story too. The toke no longer vanishes into a box shared with a robotic replacement two seats over. Dealers who worked Four Queens craps table for table in the 1990s still talk about that version of the job as the one where you had to stay chatty, because the money sat with the people at your rail.

Four Queens was still selling that pitch six months after launch. On April 11, 2025, the casino posted that dealers at both properties were “now going for their own and keeping their own tips” and pointed applicants to its site and to Binion’s.

📣In case you missed it our announcement, dealers at Four Queens and @BinionsLV are now going for their own and keeping their own tips. If you or anyone you know is interested, apply at https://t.co/NFsWY1mYM9 or https://t.co/fUSdQiEhyo. 🎉#hiring #tablegames #casinojobs pic.twitter.com/D8vmRxLZ5F

— Four Queens Hotel & Casino (@4QueensLV) April 11, 2025

Going own is a known recruiting lever on Fremont Street, and it often means the pit was already having trouble filling swings. A short list of locals had already used it, including Oyo, Ellis Island, the Strat, and Silverton. TLC added two more names in the core of downtown, where live tables still have to compete with machines and with each other.

The Shared Toke Box Was a Strip Invention

Individual tokes are the older Vegas model, not a downtown novelty. For decades dealers carried their own boxes. Busy nights paid; dead ones did not. Jim Kilby, a former dealer and UNLV gaming professor, has said pit-for-pit systems also put pressure on players to tip, because the person in the bowtie was working for that table, not for a blended average.

In the late 1980s Steve Wynn’s Mirage combined blackjack, roulette, craps, and baccarat tokes into one pot. Kilby called that the more equitable setup, and it became the Strip default. Pools flattened the night, cut the fight over who got the high-limit pad, and gave the IRS a clean average to hang a rate on.

HOW THE TOKE BOX CHANGED

1. Late 1980s: Mirage-era combined pots spread across the Strip and made shift-wide pooling the normal Las Vegas rule.
2. May 2003: The IRS launches the Gaming Industry Tip Compliance Agreement, which sets occupational tip rates that pair neatly with pooled reporting.
3. July 16, 2024: Binion’s tells players its dealers now hold their own, and that a happy toke stays with that dealer.
4. October 28, 2024: Four Queens starts the same rule across the street.
5. January 24, 2025: Rio tries a 50/50 hybrid rather than a full break with the pool.
6. April 11, 2025: Four Queens is still hiring on the going-own line.

Nevada never required the shared box. employers from taking workers’ tips is the actual ban in NRS 608.160, and the same statute says workers may agree to divide gratuities among themselves. The pool survived because it was useful, not because the statute demanded it.

Kanie Kastroll Still Prefers a Shared Toke Box

Kanie Kastroll has dealt at Wynn for a 35-year career that has always included pooling, and she is a member of UAW Local 3555. She said a pool cuts the favoritism that looks like a standing assignment to a high-limit game, or a sentence on an unpopular table.

The benefit of the pool is even if you have awesome skills and you’re a five-star dealer, you can still have fluctuations. Tip pooling makes it less volatile.

Kanie Kastroll, Wynn dealer and UAW Local 3555 member

That is the loser’s brief in one line. Skill does not stop a cold rail. A five-star dealer can still draw Pai Gow. The pool is income insurance, and the 10 percent who left Binion’s were paying the premium on purpose.

The Nevada Office of the Labor Commissioner has long told employers that mandatory tip pools among employees are legal, including across different ranks, as long as the house keeps none of the money. Wynn spent years in court over a pool that folded floor staff into the dealers’ box. The state supreme court allowed it. TLC did the opposite of that fight. It shrank the box to one person.

Casale’s rotation is supposed to answer Kastroll. If nobody lives on a dead game, the volatility should shrink. Schedulers still decide who opens the $100 pad, and who sits down at 4 a.m. A 30-minute spin through the pit is not the same thing as a 24-hour split of every chip.

Rio’s 50/50 Split Did Not Calm the Pit

Three months after Four Queens went own, Rio tried to buy some of the same recruiting story without dumping the pool. An internal memo said table-game dealers would keep 50 percent of the tokes at their table. The other 50 percent would be split among everyone who worked in that 24-hour period. The rule took effect Friday, Jan. 24, 2025.

Rio’s memo called the split better because it “ensures everyone has a fair and reliable income, encourages teamwork, and helps us all provide a better, more consistent experience for our guests.” A statement from the property said the change was for “greater fairness, transparency, and the continued success of our team members.”

Dealers who would only talk without their names did not buy it. One veteran who has dealt in Las Vegas since the early 1980s said, “I’ve never heard of this, at least not anywhere I’ve ever worked.” The same dealer added that nobody was going to show up “for a 50/50 cut.” Another said prime games would still go to whoever the scheduler assigned, and that the setup invited kickbacks. A third called it “open to corruption.”

Rio dealers have no union. Dreamscape bought the property for $516 million in 2019, took full control in October 2023, and has been putting nearly $350 million into rooms and the floor. The 50/50 split was labor policy on a renovation budget: keep a floor for the graveyard, dangle half a table’s tokes at the people who can still draw a crowd. It is the TLC idea with the nerve taken out, and the people on the pad heard that.

Individual Tokes Meet the IRS Rate Machine

Pooling is common in part because the IRS built a machine that likes averages. Casinos can sign a Gaming Industry Tip Compliance Agreement that sets minimum tip rates for casino jobs by occupational category. The program started in May 2003. A 2020 revenue procedure stretched those deals from three years to five. Participating dealers report to the rate. The house gets fewer fights over unreported tokes.

Going own punches a hole in that convenience. Casale said Binion’s dealers now report what they actually took at the end of each shift so payroll can tax it. That is closer to the letter of a daily tip record for tax reporting than a blended GITCA number. It is also more paperwork, and it is more visible when a swing dealer has a $150 night.

Some dealers dislike own for that reason alone. A pooled average can hide a fat shift. An end-of-shift count cannot. The winners on swing still come out ahead after tax. The people who left were not only protecting a slow table. They were protecting a quieter W-2.

WHO TOOK THE MONEY

• Swing dealers: Tokes on the busiest shift moved to $150 a day from $50 to $60, if they could work every game and rotate.
• The two pits: Binion’s filled a swing that had been 30 to 40 percent short and used the same pitch to hire at Four Queens.
• Players at a hot table: A toke now stays with the dealer they actually liked.
• Pool loyalists: About 10 percent left Binion’s rather than give up a smoothed paycheck.
• Neighboring crews: Casale said the new money came from other casinos still running a shared box.
• Graveyard and Pai Gow: The old subsidy is gone unless the 30-minute rotation is honest every night.

In a December 2025 update for the two properties, Tim Lager said the conversion was about keeping a better dealer and making a living on Fremont Street, and that service complaints fell because the tip went to the person on the game. He also said the model only works if dealers can work every game and rotate, so a busy pad gets shared in time if not in chips. That is still a split. It is just a split of minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does going for their own mean for Las Vegas dealers?

It means the dealer keeps the tokes earned at that table, including chips a player bets for the dealer, instead of dropping them into a shift-wide toke box. Older downtown crews called the same rule table for table. The dealer still has to report the take for payroll tax, and at Binion’s and Four Queens the fairness tool is a 30-minute rotation through every game rather than a pooled split of the cash.

Can a Nevada casino require dealers to pool tips?

Yes. NRS 608.160 stops the employer from keeping tips or counting them toward minimum wage, and it allows employees to divide gratuities. Nevada case law and the Labor Commissioner’s tip guide treat a house-ordered pool as legal even when it includes different ranks, so long as every dollar goes to workers and none of it goes back to the company.

Why do most Las Vegas casinos still pool dealer tokes?

A pool matches the IRS Gaming Industry Tip Compliance Agreement, which has set occupational minimum tip rates for casinos since 2003 and now can run for five-year terms. It also stops a scheduler from handing the whole night to one popular dealer. Strip houses that already fill swing shifts have little reason to give that insurance up.

How did Rio’s 50/50 toke split differ from going own?

Rio dealers keep half the tokes at their own table and send the other half into a pool divided among everyone who worked in that 24-hour period. TLC’s pits keep 100 percent at the game. Rio is run by Dreamscape, not TLC, its dealers are not unionized, and the hybrid started on Jan. 24, 2025, after the company had already put nearly $350 million into a remodel.

Four Queens was still hiring on going-own in April 2025, and by December the two pits were still describing the conversion as a service win. The shared box is what Vegas used to keep slow games staffed. Downtown just decided the swing shift was worth more than that truce.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on casino labor practices and tip rules in Las Vegas. It is for information only and is not tax, employment, or legal advice, and it is not a guide on how to report tokes, join or leave a tip pool, or handle a wage claim. Readers who need advice on tip reporting, payroll withholding, or a workplace dispute should talk with a licensed tax professional, an employment lawyer, or the Nevada Labor Commissioner before acting. Pay figures, staffing claims, and policy details reflect the named company officials, workers, statutes, and IRS materials cited here and can change if a property or a regulator revises the rule.