How Much Does A Stripper Make?
DougS
Florida
Not only do the disprepancies make it extremely difficult to put a number to this question, the girls and the clubs don't want us to know.
The girls, whether it's true or not, want us to think that they hardly make any money at all. They "poor mouth it" and whine and complain, I believe in order to elicit more money from us. I've heard the "I didn't even make enough money to tip out tonight" story SO many times. But, when you observe, it looks to me like they are raking in the money.
Even at $10 per dance, if they just do twenty dances, that's $200...
MY personal opinion is that a typical dancer, at a typical club can easily make $300-500 per shift.
My theory is, the average to upper echelon dancers at a club are probably making pretty good money. I also believe that most of them just don't know how to control their spending and have no concept of how to maintain their finances, which is why they tend to "poor mouth" and invite more spending to help dig them out of the hole.
Even my faves and past ATFs and current ATF sing the "how terrible business is" song. I'm not convinced. My ATF will say that she only made $40 that day... as much as I respect her, trust her and even care for her, sometimes it's difficult to believe. I know how sexy she is and I find it hard to believe that she's not constantly busy every day.
What's everyone else's take on this question? EvilCyn can you shed some light, too?
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From personal knowledge my ATF worked 3-4 days a week and probably averaged $300-500 on week nights and at least twice that on weekend nignts. (She once told me that she considered $300 to be a bad night.) Her club was a tiny local dive and she was a top performer there. Some of the other girls there probably made less than half, maybe less than a quarter, of what she did.
The magazine article I referred to elsewhere says that a girl who works hard can make $150K+ in Vegas. Maybe that's the top, I doubt if many strippers earn that much. But I think a lot of them make $40K+ working fewer than 40 hours a week. So I'd call it $1,000 or so a week for 30 hours for a decent performer at an average club. With no taxes.
I wouldn't know where to begin identifying an average dancer. For every girl who has a good run of two or more years with it, there are dozens who don't last long enough to ever make serious money. At some of the better money clubs I visit, they always have too many girls. Even on a decent night, you'll see several girls you just know can't be making enough to survive. So, maybe the top 20 dancers at the club average $1,500-2,000 per week, but there's a constantly rotating cast of 40 or more who average a small fraction of that. So, I guess the question is what do you want the average earnings to be? Whatever figure you want, there's sure to be a way to slant the statistics to give you that result.
So, just watching to see how many dances each girl does per hour isn't necessarily the way to arrive at a figure.
Not that they are all that different from other self-employed people. My brethren arent' exactly paragons of candor in such matters, either.
At most big-city clubs, a girl who looks "good enough" can rely on making $500, net after tip-outs and bullshit, a night on each weekend night. The number will range widely, depending on club or city or girl.
The thing is, there's a self-selecting phenomenon going on with stripper income. If they make more than that, they spend it on frivolous pursuits, often drugs and disposible clothing. If they make less, they work harder in order to make that much.
So I perceive most strippers as living within the "middle class" range. Few can make as much as $80K a year, because they lack the stick-to-it-ive-ness. Few sink below $25K a year, if they're full-time stripping, because it's really hard not to collect money on the "get paid to party" circuit that many of the low-income girls follow -- basically, they'd go out with their friends and sit around and drink on Friday night and PAY FOR their drinks, or they can go IN with their friends to a strip club and get their drinks PAID FOR, and it's the same experience either way, but in a strip club there's the income of tips.
Another thought is, that it's hard to buy tangible assets with a strictly cash income, without having to first pay taxes on it. The biggest nicest things you can get with cash, without putting it in the bank, and recording it as income for the IRS, are cars and bling bling. Oh, and drugs, of course. :) But try to buy a house or a 401-K plan with greenbacks. Some of the more cagey, together girls, create a catering, licensed massage, or dog grooming business as a front for their stripping income. Most of the others just let the cash sit in a drawer.
Here's a hint. At closing time, watch the girls all scamper to the bar cash register, or the tip-out cage, to exchange their income for big bills. I always thought this was silly. If I had $1000 that I expected to spend, I'd want it in $20-bills, not in $100s. That's because I would be spending it at regular stores, bit by bit, and anything I wouldn't be spending at a regular store I'd be sticking in the bank right away. For me, a pile of $1s may be a problem, but a pile of $20s is just about right. But the girls, on the other hand, want as FEW pieces of paper to carry around as possible, because they'll be stashing piles and piles of it around the house. The successful ones need to try to fit as much as $10,000.oo into their safe at home. Try to do that with $20s.
My question is: What do they do with money ? !!!
I talked with a dancer a few weeks ago who had been holding a presciption from her doctor for 3 weeks because she couldn't afford to get it filled. She is a very attractive dancer who gets lots of dances, so I cannot figure out how she couldn't afford it. Let's say it would cost $100....I know she could make that in a few hours. She didn't appear to be a druggie, but I guess looks could be deceiving.
Keep that in mind when you are tucking your singles down some girl's thong at the tip rail! (Although I am as guilty as anyone in doing that -- sometimes it's the only way to get a dancer's attention when she doesn't know you.)
Some of my favs I'd just assume not know...I'm afraid it may be depressingly too close to what I'm having to bust my hump for.
I agree that most of the girls only make as much as they need, then take the rest of the week or month off. And depedning on their situation they spend it on their housing and food, cars, their kids, college, and/or drugs and booze. Few of the young ones save anything, they think they'll be making lots of money forever.
I know a guy, a hard-nosed former military type, who lives near me, whose brother (his "family's fuck up") has spent most of his life working as one kind or another of strip club employee -- bar-back, security bouncer, DJ, etc. I should try to get to know him! :)
One club has a policy that it seems could be a problem if they weren't already very selective about who they hire. I was getting a dance in the VIP when a bouncer ducked his head in for a sec and looked around. The dancer told me not to worry about him, he was just checking to see which girls were doing their first dance of the night. They have a $90 stage fee, but girls don't need to pay it until they do a dance. So, I guess some girls who can't get started selling dances just give up and hang out until they can leave without paying to work. It sounds nice for them, but really, why make it easier for dancers who can't even sell one dance?
At 1% of a stereo, $10 is negligible. At 90% of a newspaper, $10 seems important.
But it's the same $10, and buys the same amount of cigarettes, beer, bread, gasoline, or soda crackers.
Faulty human decision making. We do it every day.
I think you guys are over estimating the tipout fees - in most clubs, which are the small neighborhood places, tipouts are minimal and there aren't any stage fees. For most strippers the gross and net are nearly the same. I also think that most strippers make most of their money from their regulars, so the secret to making big bucks is to have a lot of them. Then they don't have to work very hard either.
Much of the silly-economic-comparison game loses these points in the mix, trying to state that all similar products are therefore identical in economic terms. But that is false. (Actually, I don't see why amortization has to fall into the mix at all. If you buy a newspaper here or there, it amortizes immediately, as you rightly point out. A stereo takes a while. But you're buying a high-price or low-price similar item, and comparing the one to the other. The $10 is still a $10 difference, whether it takes 10 years or 10 minutes to amortize.)
Another comparison often made in psychology or economics classes, is the one about the guy who "worked hard" to get his football playoff tickets. Rabid Bears Fan Koszlowzskiak stands outside in a howling Lake Michigan blizzard at Soldier Field for seventy-two hours waiting for playoff tickets for Da beloved Bearz to become available, and he buys them for list price. Tepid Bears Fan Muffett-Braithwaite wins the right to identical tickets through a radio program random selection process, and he buys them for the same list price. Rabid fan is much more likely to keep his tickets or insist on selling them for a premium, than is Tepid fan, although both are "technically" worth the same because they're right next to each other for the same game in the same section. Some economists might say that Rabid fan is being irrational, over-valuing that which has its own determined market value based on what someone will pay for the tickets, while Tepid fan is being sensible, letting the market determine the appropriate resale price. Economists' excuse for this analysis is, that the "sunk cost" of time spent in a blizzard is actually non-retrievable and non-fungible, and therefore cannot be valued by a purchase-price determined in any market. But those economists would be wrong, for they fail to include the notion that Rabid fan enjoys the game more than Tepid fan, and therefore rates his EXPERIENCE higher, regardless of dollar price. Tepid would resell for anything at a profit, uninterested as he is in sitting in the stands. The tickets, and the experience they entail, therefore, are NOT identical, although numbers on them such as face value and seat assignment are. The difference is in what the OWNERS gain from them, not in what level the MARKET (which implies resale) would or could value them.
For me, it's all proof that the Adam-Smith-style "free market" has a lot more going on than mere economists would ever allow.
As I've pointed out before, classical economic theory assumes rational buyers and sellers operating with perfect information. That rarely happens. In fact the whole concept of marketing is about enouraging buyers to make irrational buying decisions. Which is why, for example, beer and car commercials usually feature pretty girls as much as they do beer and cars.
And there probbly isn't anything less rational than spending money on a stripper. But we do it anyway.
Of course, I'm just guessing. Anyway, if my change to your assumption is correct, then the rest of the calculations dip accordingly.
I think the only anwer to the question, "How much does a stripper make?" is: if she's good, as much as she wants to.
Minnow. Whered you ever hear of 4 hour shifts? 8 to closing or 12-8 are the usual shifts I've scene. 8 hours.
However after reading all the estimates given, I'd say $1000 a week would appear to be a good estimate based on my personal experience.
I also saw that a good looking stripper couldnt get a prescription filled. Thats most likely cause shes got to buy the drug at retail. You know they don't have health insurance in most strip clubs. Which is another disadvantage to the profession.
Bad spending probably accounts for most of the "poor" strippers. That or fat, ugly don't know how to do a ld.
Either way, I'm still a bit unconvinced that reasonably good-looking girl at an average club can rely on selling three lap dances per hour. I guess if you average it out across the whole United States, then maybe so; but Vegas, Tampa, and LA are upping the average. I wonder if we could get a mean and a standard variation? :)
Anyway, most of us are just guessing. I certainly am. Next tiime I'm up close and personal with a girl whom I think I can trust, I'll investigate and start tallying results. It's a long-term project.
Some have told me on a day by day basis, they can't make payout after being their six hours, while I've seen others (who usually do the EXTRAS thing) stay around 2-3 hours, payout early, and walk with $500 or more!
But, annually (not anal-ly) it would definately be a WAG!
My ATF, as well as a lot of other dancers that I've talked to, complain about the dirty dancers. Once a dancer makes it known that she will not do extras, a lot of guys will go to the girls that WILL do extras. My ATF was just mentioning the other day how poorly she had done lately, while a few dancers that do extras have been extremely busy.
It seems like because of that, it is only a matter of time before the clean dancers will start doing the extras, just to make enough money to survive.
For the customers, this isn't a bad thing. But I still hope that my ATF will stand her ground and not compromise her morals. I'm pretty sure that she will always remain a clean dancer.
From a dancers perspective, it seems like you would make more money stringing a guy along all night long in the VIP room and keeping it clean. Once a guy is finished after a few songs, he is going to leave. From an economic point of view, makes more sense to keep it clean and keep the guy for as long as possible.
But some trouble using paragraphs it seems.
Not sure what made me think of that.
@nina right. if she already has a 100k+ second job, why would she need to be a nursing student OR a stripper