From my reading of the law the vast majority of tip pools are not legal, to wit:

>Tip Pool: The requirement that an employee must retain all tips does not preclude a valid tip pooling or sharing arrangement among employees who customarily and regularly receive tips, such as waiters, waitresses, bellhops, counter personnel (who serve customers), bussers, and service bartenders. A valid tip pool may not include employees who do not customarily and regularly received tips, such as dishwashers, cooks, chefs, and janitors.

I haven’t yet seen a tip pooling scheme that didn’t also include back of house, i.e. chefs/cooks, and often supervisors or managers which cannot be included by federal law.

But your point stands, my statement was overly broad.