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The Match-Play Coupon
Circuit Part III Let me start by saying that when I embarked upon this Match-Play
Circuit it was totally new territory for me. I have LEARNED a lot and I
have EARNED a lot in the process. At this point, I can now say that so far, I like the
scenery
As I mentioned in the last installment of
this article, it was originally written in 2002, so some of the items listed may no longer
be available or as widely distributed. However
there are still plenty of profit-making opportunities, and I would encourage you to take
advantage of the 49.3% POSITIVE-expectation that Match-Play coupons bring to your craps
game.
Collect,
Use
Profit
The idea was simple:
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Try to COLLECT as many Match-Play coupons as
possible.
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Try to USE as many Match-Plays as possible.
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Try to make as much PROFIT off of them as
possible.
I set aside a week of my time in Las Vegas to
give it a fair try. By the end of my first
day on the Circuit, I knew I was on to a good thing.
Is it Worth the
Effort?
To keep things in perspective, this
experiment DID NOT meet the minimum per day benchmark of profit that I use to gauge my own
Precision-Shooting success.
However, it did show steady rates of return,
and I did not have to put out large bets to get that profit safely tucked into my pocket. Simply put, I didnt have to have very much
of my own cash out on the layout to garner the nice profit that these coupons brought in.
Ill give you the details shortly, but
to summarize:
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I spent 12 to 15 hours a day looking for
coupons, mapping out my Coupon Circuit, traveling to the actual target-casinos, playing a
craps session or two (or three or four), cashing out my winnings (or losses) and moving on
to the next venue.
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I did this for seven days straight, and as it
turned out, I had to distribute my play over all three casino work-shifts. This maneuver helped increase the number of
coupons I could actually cash by nearly threefold. Of
course, the drawback is that it had an offsetting negative effect on my normal sleep-wake
cycle. While money never sleeps,
I still have to.
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I was booked into several casino/hotels at the
same time to take advantage of their comped rooms or suites AND most importantly for
this experiment, the high-value guest-only match-plays.
I did catch some power-naps between some sessions, and used the spa and gym
facilities quite a bit as well.
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I spent considerably more time than usual
schmoozing with Pit Critters so that I could get the extra latitude needed to
redeem multiple mps at the same casino (in most cases, on the same shift, at the
same table, with the same crew).
I can tell you that this
particular task is no easy feat for the shy, timid or personality-challenged. Although schmoozing does help a lot, I find that
the bigger-the-bankroll-the-more-slack-youll-get theory holds a
great deal of power in and of itself.
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My net-profit worked out to just over $400 per
day, but it is important to understand that this was a concerted effort that I dont
think I could have sustained for more than a month or two before I burned myself out, both
mentally and physically.
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That works out to about $30 per hour (based on
a 13.5 hour workday); a rate which may be attractive to the, Would you like to
biggie-size your order, sir? set, but I think that figure is misleading.
Some Perspective
I say that the $30 per hour figure might be
somewhat misleading because some of the moves that I made while conducting this experiment
can be difficult for the low-budget player to replicate.
This is especially true if you dont
already have a proven track-record of casino-play with some of the more attractive targets
that I focused on during the one week tour of the circuit.
The best mps (the multiple $25, $50 and
$100 coupons) are linked to comped room offers or casino-rate promotions. To receive those offers, you usually first have to
be a rated-player at that particular house, and of course, the higher your rating, the
more generous the offers are.
If You Were Just
Starting Out
Therefore, if someone is just starting out,
and/or they have a limited gaming budget and/or limited dice-shooting skills; then you
would have to rely upon the match-plays generated from new Player Card sign-ups, casino
fun-books, coupon trading and coupon-scooping (where you utilize the unused
coupons that others players do not redeem) as your major source.
If you have to run all over the city,
spending hour upon hour searching out the coupons, then it cuts into your actual playing
time, and all of that searching can be VERY tiring and somewhat frustrating.
I could easily see a situation where an
unrated or low-rated player would need to spend close to 8 or 10 hours each day seeking
the coupons, and another 5 to 7 hours traveling, playing and redeeming them. Thats a long day for most people, and it
equates to a very long 90 to 120 hour workweek.
If I had to rely strictly on the non-hotel
sources such as fun-books, flyer-guys, time-share hawkers, coupon trading, brochure
scouting, valet/concierge/bouncer sources and coupon-scooping; then net-profit
per day would have declined to approximately $200 per day.
The hourly earn-rate would have been under
$15; thus making it unattractive, or at least not worthwhile to most people.
At the $30 rate, it was an eye-opening
experience that brought about some reliable, but relatively low profit, and also brought
about a number of craps-sessions in a couple of casinos that I rarely frequent. But like I said, it was a considerable amount of
work for a relatively modest payoff.
While it was certainly interesting, Ill
readily admit that it wasnt nearly as much fun as Precision-Shooting strictly when
and where I want. Day ONE on the Circuit I focused my first day on the downtown Las Vegas area simply
because the casinos are so close together, and I figured that I could move
(redeem) a decent number of coupons with a minimum of travel. I also figured that I would have a fair bit of backtracking to
do because of the multiple coupons that would keep me returning to the same gaming-houses
more than once each day, albeit on different shifts. I had downtown coupons ranging from the Golden
Nugget to Jerrys Nugget, and pretty much most other casinos in between. Due to the close proximity of each casino to the other (except
for Jerrys Nugget), I didnt have to do any driving or parking. As I was to find out on subsequent days of this
tour, just the parking facet (whether valet or self-parked), added considerable time to
each change of venue.
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I had accumulated Fremont Hotel m-ps through our
ownership of Boyd Gaming shares (BYD is NYSE-listed).
For each mini-block of 100 shares, the shareholder-of-record receives a $10
m-p each year with no expiry date. On top of
those, I had a small handful of one-per-day coupons from various other sources. I had no difficulty in deploying several of them
at the same table during each session despite the restriction that is printed on each one. The $3 tables proved to be quite kind to the Mad
Professor, and I managed to squeeze in a couple of lengthy hands for good measure. The casino was quite crowded on each visit, and
while I only played a few more sessions on subsequent days of this experiment, I managed
to use every m-p in my possession.
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I have to admit that I did not fair very well at Fitzgeralds. Despite new owners, new tables, new felt, and new
dice, my less-than-stellar results were not a surprise.
Even when I switched to my Long-Ranger grip (see my Long Tables =
Po$$ibilitie$ article) which brought in considerable
profit later in the day on the even longer Golden Gate tables, it didnt produce
anything approaching acceptability at The Fitz. The upside of my dice-shooting shortcomings was
that I only had a couple of m-ps to deal with, which meant that I didnt have
to return here more than a couple of times later in the week. My shooting subsequently improved at The Fitz, but
it never did reach any level of stellar profitability.
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The Lady Luck flyer-guy was camped out at his usual spot
at the Fremont Street Experience and 4th Street.
I didnt see his compadré from the Four Queens who is usually nearby,
but I did see tall Elvis in his trademark stars and stripes sequined cape
giving out vouchers near the western entrance to 4Qs later that same day. I made my way over to the Lady Luck Casino/Hotel
several times during the week. While its easy to get the fun-book vouchers,
its a royal pain to redeem them. Players
are entitled to one fun-book per day, but the time spent waiting in two separate lines to
convert them first into a validated-coupon and then another line to receive the booklet,
makes the effort a bit tedious for a shot at a possible $5 payoff at the tables. On the bright side of this, I found more than a
dozen of the books lying around the casino on various slot-carousels where the slot-point
coupons had been removed, but the match-plays usually remained intact. This method easily outweighed the hassle of
waiting in line. On subsequent days, I
didnt even try to redeem my voucher for a fun-book, and rather took the lazy-mans
route by just using the m-ps that were laying around the casino in abandoned
booklets. I will admit that if I wasnt doing this as
an experiment, I would have felt self-conscious about the coupon-scooping part
of the exercise. While I was playing my
coupons at the craps table, I did notice a couple of other people doing exactly the same
thing. It gives new meaning to the phrase,
There but for the grace of God, go I. The table-felt on the LL tables wasnt new,
but it appeared to be freshly vacuumed. There
wasnt as much flotsam and jetsam of human skin and hair follicles as there usually
is. My shooting was good, but not great. I remained in a good and positive mood as I
registered a nearly 100% perfect score on winning each on my coupon Line-bets. On each subsequent visit during the week, there
were never more than three other players at the table.
I made a mental note that if I spent a little more playing-time at Lady
Luck, my shooting consistency would probably show even stronger SRR/Inside Number hits. Just the small endeavor of playing here on three
days out of my seven day adventure brought about a ~35% increase in my SRR/Inside Number
hits-average for this casino. Its
definitely worth a concerted follow-up shooting campaign.
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I had collected a ton of $5/$25 match-plays for Gaughans
Plaza. Some were from their old fun-book,
while the rest were from a few other sources including the Casino Perks book. Ill tell you a very interesting war
story about using those BJ or Pai Gow-only coupons at the craps tables very shortly. In the meantime, Ive got to tell you that
the table-conditions at the Plaza have improved substantially, and the attitude of the
mid-level casino management has improved even more. First, the table-felt and underlay seems to have
settled into a nice neutral dice-reaction condition.
That means that the dice arent too lively, nor do they simply stop
dead upon their initial touchdown. The dice
roll straight and true without undue veering or swerving, and the surface seems to be more
forgiving of off-square landings. Second, the attitude of the mid-level casino
management seems to have improved substantially over the past little while. Sure, they still verbally joust with each other,
but there hasnt been the number of fist-fights, or the ferocity of the yelling
matches that used to break out between Pit Managers, Floor Supervisors and Box-men at the
Plaza. Ahh, Im gonna miss those good
old days.
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I had fourteen $10 match-plays for the Golden Gate Casino/Hotel (home of two 24-player monster
tables). They let me play a couple of those
each day, but I had to do it on different shifts. My
schmoozing efforts didnt do me any good at this particular joint. Ill say this though. When I combined the nearly ~50% player-advantage
with my Long-Ranger grip and throw, the results (based on dollars-bet compared to
dollar-won) were amongst the best of any casino that I played in all week. By weeks end, I managed to play all fourteen
coupons, and with my Precision-Shooting popping on all cylinders I had won nearly every
single one of them. I can also tell you that I was unable to convince
GCs casino-management to let me use any of their $5 Roulette m-ps in the craps
pit. It was one of the few places where I was
unable to persuade the Pit Meisters to allow me to do that at least once or twice.
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Jerry's Nugget (north of the FSE on Main Street)
turned out to be a bit of a strange animal as far as using coupons. Initially they said that they didnt honor
match-plays anymore; then they said they did, but that mine had expired. When I pointed out that
mine didnt have any expiry date on them, the Pit Boss asked how many I had, and how
long I was planning to play for. I held up
five $5 m-ps and my $500 buy-in, while I replied that it all depended on how lucky I
was that would determine how long I played. He
nodded his head to the box-man and said, Okay, good luck, you can use them all if
you want. Lets just say
that luck was definitely on my side. I won 4
out of the 5 Pass-Line bets that I wagered the coupons on.
Each hand wasnt actually very long, but they did throw off a fair bit
of Inside-Number wins on my regressed-then-pressed Place-bets. Midway through this, I
noticed that my Pit Boss benefactor was eying me. It
was either his irritable bowel or my growing rack of chips that caused a look of mild
disgust and growing irritation to cross his face. I
had the feeling that I was outstaying my welcome, so after winning my final PL bet, I fled
the scene quicker than Winona Ryder leaves a Saks 5th Avenue department-store.
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I played my Four Queens m-ps where the famous
bald-headed prick is a dealer of some repute for hassling a particular segment
of the dicesetting community. That meant that I had to return to 4Qs for each of the seven days of this experimental circuit. My shooting was definitely keyed-in during most, but not all of my hands. I noticed a discernable lack of players here, and Ive also noticed a steady decline in dealer-attitude over the past couple of years. I covered this subject in my Cheap Craps Guide Part II article.Like I said earlier, I did not count one single solitary non-coupon dollar into my net-profit figure. The $400 per-day profit number was derived STRICTLY from match-play coupons, and from NO OTHER SOURCE whatsoever.
I dont know what it is about
free meals based upon comped-play or promotional coupons, but the meals just seem to taste
a little better especially if I am coming off of a good win, and this day was no exception
to that perception. Armed with a couple of free dinner coupons, we entered the restaurant through the original Pullman Mansion copper-relief entry doors. From the panels of Aesops Fables to an actual railcar built by the Pullman Company for Louisa May Alcott (author of Little Women, Eight Cousins, etc.), this upscale (but not up-priced) eatery is a hidden treasure.
A Quick War Story
An Abject Lesson A Pit Supervisor now has to check your I.D. to verify that your name isnt on a blacklist of players who have over-used or abused the Casino Perks coupons, and are now banned from redeeming them.
A Good and Valid
Question The proof for corporate managers will be in the unbridled winnings that some greedy students extract from the tables. The casino-corporations dont have to wait, and wont wait until the scientific community has delivered unassailable proof that dice-setting works.
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