I would inquire about how much is withheld from the prizepool for dealers. There are often two separate “rakes” – an administrative fee which is basically the casino’s profit and non-personnel expenses then a fee for “staff” which is split, not always evenly, between dealers and floor staff. So when you tip, you probably aren’t tipping your specific dealer but rather contributing to a pool. My understanding is that dealers do rely upon these tips for a living wage. They get some money from the staff fee. The main time when I don’t tip is when tournaments have some additional “dealer appreciation bonus” where you pay an extra $20 or something at the start of the tournament and get extra chips.

The STTs at WSOP at least used to pay out weird amounts like $1076 where it was pretty well understood that that extra $76 should get tipped off. Maybe Cherokee is not like that though. Depending on what’s already withheld from the prize pool for dealers, I may tip something like 5% on small prizes and 1% on big ones (and not tip at all when I don’t cash).

In addition to any fairness arguments in favor of tipping, there are also practical ones. If you intend to play at Cherokee in the future, then you have an interest in insuring that good dealers consider it worth their time to make the trek. If they don’t make good money, then they won’t come back, and you’ll be stuck with whatever temp employees then casino can train up in two weeks.