Behind a Las Vegas casino bar, Marti (@martiii_soulll) says a customer who’d been nursing comped drinks all shift balked at a $10 Captain Morgan he’d been told up front he’d have to buy. She strained it into a to-go cup and walked off.

Captain Morgan with a terrible tip

The warning came at shift change: She says a co-worker told her about two couples who had camped at one end of the bar, upping their bets to earn a drink, then dropping them the moment she stepped away, and refusing to open a tab.

Marti comped one man a beer after watching him play 15 minutes. “The minute I give that guy a beer, he stops playing,” she says. Later he ordered a Captain Morgan on the rocks. She told him his machine was empty, and she’d have to charge him; he agreed. Already wary, she poured a short ounce and a quarter, “because I already had a feeling … I was gonna have to spill tab it.”

Then he wanted a splash of Coke. “It’s gonna be $10,” she told him. “He’s like, no, I’m not paying that. And I go, oh, you’re not gonna pay? And he goes, no, I’m not paying that.” She grabbed a plastic cup, strained the rum off the ice, and walked away.

The group left within minutes—Cowboys fans, she says, stung by a Sunday-night loss. As one fumbled with a cash-out ticket, the man who’d refused the $10 drink coached him on the tip: “Give them 10 cents. That’s what they deserve.” Marti looked up from the dishes. “Yep, that’s a shocker. 10 cents. Make our day,” she replied.

‘You gotta shame them’

The first note here is that Vegas is Vegas, and they needed to bring Vegas money.

“You gotta shame them for being so cheap,” said one commenter.

“Ughhhh. I hate people like that,” said one older bartender. “I’m older now and semi-retired from the hospitality biz, but I work [two] nights a week bartending at a VFW. The members usually tip me 40 to 50 percent, and they’re all Veterans.”

One person was worried about her Cowboys poke: “Easy on the Cowboy hate. I’m a Cowboys fan. I just got an alert on my credit card asking if I meant to tip 103% at my local bar.”

Play or pay

Las Vegas has a standing, unwritten rule that regulars and frequent visitors understand: the pour is free only as long as you keep feeding the machine.

Caesars Entertainment built that into the hardware, a comp-validation system that reserves comped drinks for “gamers who choose max play at our video poker bar top units.” The 10-cent dig lands in a leaner Las Vegas, especially post-COVID and into the current economic downturn, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It reports that tipped income across the city has dropped by as much as half, squeezed by $37 martinis and softer crowds; one cocktail server says she now averages about a dime a drink.

Ted Pappageorge, who heads the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union, told Fox News the industry and government must “repair the damage and welcome tourism back.”