As someone who has worked in the restaurant biz for 10 years I can assure karma does not exist. For all the jerks we see there would have to waaaay more fiery car accidents daily if it did...
And nowhere I've seen has ever made a waiter or waitress pay for a dine and dash. You are, however, at least screwing them out of the tip. The managers don't want us chasing people or laying hands on them for liability reasons.
Most often it's customers who are simply too drunk and didn't even mean to. They're not really about the speedy escape. You catch up to them and they will apologize and pay (with a nice tip!). Only twice has a real dash happened that I've seen, and both times they paid dearly. Once they got the cops, the other time they got a very angry, violent waiter (who later became a cop lol).