|
The Match-Play Coupon
Circuit Part VI So
at 4 in the morning Im reclining in the Jacuzzi of my demi-suite at NYNY. At that time of night, craps tables all over town
are nearly empty, and solo shooting opportunities are cheap and plentiful. Normally this would be around the time I would be getting
up, but after a long day on the match-play circuit, sleep was the only kind of
action that I was looking for. My
cellphone abruptly rang at 9 a.m. The
Coupon-Rustler was over at Monte Carlo, signing up for their free Daily Slot Tournament. That tournie is good for at least a free mug, if
nothing else, even if you come in last. If
anything is free, youll likely find the Rustler somewhere nearby. He uses freebies like that as an
incentive for the trades he conducts with eager-for-a-deal tourists. He also had some Grand Slam breakfast coupons for
Dennys at Casino Royale, and wanted to know if I was up to spending another hectic
day under his wing. I
told him it would take me about three-quarters an hour to feel partially human again, so
he decided to head over to the Trop to cash-in a pile of their $15-for-$10 Matchplays that
had been scooped out of a heap of tourist magazines, and then go on to the Aladdin to
score a few of their $15-for-$10 WinCards, before meeting up with me at Casino Royale for
some mid-morning Grand Slam® eggs-over-easy fueled dice action.
Day
Four Begins
Our
Casino Royale Session
I
was surprised that the Crapshooter sit-down game at CR wasnt totally full when I got
there. For a complete report on this table
and the playing conditions here, please have a look at my
Mad Professor's Mini
Tub Tour - Part II article.
In
a low voice, he told me that the lone dealer/stickman who was handling the game was juiced-in
with us and would let us play as many mps as our little hearts desired. The unspoken understanding of course, was that we
would also tip to the dealers little hearts contentment, which we did. While
the Coupon-Rustler doesnt actually take up two chairs, his body sort of overhangs
and intrudes into the next closest players personal space.
This isnt really a problem unless you are into the annoying habit of
swinging side to side on the rotating Crapshooter stools as though they are some sort of
cheap amusement-park ride. However, when I
was shooting, I had to reposition myself so that his girth didnt infringe into my
personal-space comfort-zone. Although
I didnt get to sit at my favorite table spot, I was nonetheless in good position to
the opposing backwall. While I couldnt
throw directly into the far (54-inches away) corner (from my #6 chair position), I was
able to hit the wall where it flattens briefly to make its transition into that corner. Even the cocktail-waitress commented upon my being
in a different spot than normal as she brought our drinks.
I responded by toking her and saying, maybe it will bring me good
luck. She smiled and said, I
thought I was the one who brought you good luck? My mind gave me a perfect, hormonally-inspired
response, but my conscience thought the safer retort was a silent, but enticing smile. Damn
conscience! Casino
Royale Results
Our
session was terrific as far as redeeming a ton of $5 mps, and was really gratifying
(read: profitable) for my own Precision-Shooting. The
Rustler also threw two substantial hands that both approached the 20-roll range. Afterwards, I told him that that was the best I
had witnessed from him in nearly 30 or so sessions that we had played together. He agreed, and said that he had been wanting to
speak to me about doing more of what I do (playing craps for a living) instead of him
having to rely mostly on match-plays to fuel his own, less lucrative gaming lifestyle. That
particular discussion fed our conversation for the balance of the day. When
we cashed out our winnings at the cage, I was headed for the rear parking lot exit, but
the Rustler remembered that he had a few 2-for-1 Natural
Blackjack payout
coupons and promptly sat his ass down at an empty $5 game (all of the other $2 and $3
tables were packed). Instead of standing
there like someone who was actually interested in the game, I wandered over to the two
big tables (any craps table that comfortably accommodates 20-players is a BIG
table in my books). One
thing that I dont like about the way the CR pit is set up, is that if you want to
move from one big table to the other, you have to go around the entire tables-games pit to
get to the other side (instead of being in its own self-contained craps-pit area). Sometimes, by the time you get there, the
shooting-spot that you had your eye on has been taken by someone else. I
was only able to unload one additional match-play there, because the Table Game Supervisor
(or the sometimes non-existent boxman) has to do the drop instead of one of
the dealers (like at the sit-down game). I
marked down another $10 in mp-profits on the win side of the ledger that I was
using to keep separate track of my progress. When
the Rustler approached and said that he was ready to go, I sardonically asked if he had
run out of CR coupons. He laughed and said
that he still had a pocketful of 4-of-a-Kind Double
Bonus vouchers for video-poker, but he didnt think I had the patience to stick
around while he was looking for Quads-of-anything on vp.
He was right. From there, we
headed over to the hip trendyness of The Palms Hotel-Casino.
Phanthom
Stays When
I booked into the Palms at 3:30 am earlier that morning (at the end of Day Three) I
redeemed a $50 cash-voucher and validated two corresponding match-plays of equal value. I
was also tempted to book into the Riviera, Harrahs and Ballys for a similar
phantom-stay to further subsidize my match-play revenue. If I hadnt been so tired from nearly
18-hours of running around town, I probably would have done it. A
phantom-stay is where you currently stay at one hotel, but you book into one
or more additional places so that you can take advantage of their free stay with
match-plays and/or cash-voucher offers. These
phantom-stays are one way to get and use more guest-only match-plays without
actually staying there. Some savvy players
will actually check-in to two, three, or even four hotels simultaneously, all in the
pursuit of the freebies that come with the comped room-night offers that are becoming ever
more popular with the big gaming-corporations. Tempted,
But Saved by My Conscience Since
I still had a large mound of $7-for-$5 mps for the Riv, I also saved that room-comp
with the corresponding $75 match-play bonus (along with the offers from Harrahs and
Ballys) for later in the week. I
subsequently found out that I could have booked into The Riv, then checked-out the next
day, and then checked back in again the following day, and they still would have given me
the $75 bonus each time I checked-in (the offer was for three separate
up-to-four-nights-stays per month, excluding convention blackout periods),
even if I made the same move three times in one-week.
Though
that would have been a little bit of overkill, I was still tempted. My conscience got the better of me and I decided
that I didnt want to ruin this Golden Goose of benefits either. I dont have any regrets, although my
daily-win average would have probably increased markedly if I had taken them up on that
particular loophole.
The
Palms Session I
had a lackluster session at The Palms that I will blame on their micro-fiber table-felt
(for a full explanation about this, please see my
Conquering Micro-Fiber Table-Felt article). In actual fact, the blame for that uninspiring
session rested squarely with me. I
hadnt played on their micro-fiber tables for a number of days, and was therefore out
of sorts for the first number of tosses. I
should have either taken a few practice tosses before I got there (as I did in the
above-noted article), or waited to use both $50 match-plays until AFTER I had the
table dialed-in. Nevertheless,
I was able to harvest one win (and one loss) for a net $50 gain. At that moment, I was not entirely pleased with
myself for having squandered a $50 chit simply because I was not properly prepared. I quickly regrouped, but promised myself that if
faced with the same situation again, I would definitely play it much smarter next time.
It
Pays to be Yearned For Often
times, Ill get a letter or promotional card from a casino that I havent played
in for a while. In fact, I still get letters
from a couple of obscure casinos that Ive only played in once or twice over the last
ten years. Its one of those please-come-back-and-lose-some-money
come-ons that casinos use when they mine their data-base of customers. Sometimes
youll get the same type of offers just by signing their website guest-book or
applying on-line for their Players Card. In
other cases, a one-time visit with nominal play will bring invitations for a comped, or at
least match-play/cash-voucher return. In
the case of the Gold Coast Casino however, it was none of those reasons. I had received a letter signed by both Niall
Glennon (Executive Host) and Alan Scano (Casino Manager) inviting me (well, bribing
me is a more appropriate term) to their place to see the then-recent renovations and
expansion that had just been completed at Gold Coast.
The bribe
er
invitation came with three $25 match-plays
along with the de rigueur three free nights stay.
In the gaming business, it definitely pays to be yearned for, or at least to
be in as many customer data-bases as possible.
My
Gold Coast Session I
had no problem playing all three of the mps, and did much better with my shooting
here than I did at The Palms. GCs $2
and $3 tables were busier
than John Wayne in a B-movie bar fight, but the lone $5 game only had a total of six
players once I joined in the melée. Ive long said that the Gold Coast layouts
are some of the sweetest rolling tables in Las Vegas, and as Ive also mentioned,
they have the EXACT same bounce, bite, and roll characteristics as the tables at Mirage
(even though the felt is totally different). Most
savvy Precision-Shooting pros will use a short session on the GC tables as a sort of
warm-up or tune-up for their toss before tackling the more expensive (but much more
tolerant of high-profit wins) situation at The Mirage. After
going three-for-three in the mp win-column, the Rustler had to stop at Seattles Best
coffee-bar near the side of GCs escalators which lead up to their massive Bingo Hall
and equally massive 70-lane Bowling Center. He
said that he needed to pick up some of the premium stuff (a Javanilla
White Chocolate Caffe Mocha, whatever the hell THAT is) because we were going to
meet up with one of his most talented advantage-coupon partners. Pssst
Wanna
Good Deal? One of the
Coupon-Rustlers partners hangs around the Players Booths at the six Station
Casinos that are scattered throughout town. His
specialty is that he asks people who are signing up for their Boarding Pass
Players Card for the first time, if they are table-game players. If they arent, he asks them if they would be
willing to trade their newly acquired match-plays coupons for additional food and drink
vouchers. Surprisingly, most people are quite
willing, especially when enticed with some free shrimp cocktails, hotdogs, pizza,
micro-brews or free daiquiri coupons at various other casinos. He does this during
the busiest sign-up times during the day and early evening, and especially mid-day on the
weekends. In his off-hours,
youll find him at the Boulder Station, Palace Station, Sunset Station, Sante Fe
Station, Texas Station etc., craps and blackjack tables.
He is a decent enough Precision-Shooter (and a lousy card player), but I can tell
you that if he wasnt making the match-play routine part of his game-approach; then
his income would hardly ever approach its current $60 per hour average. This chap manages
to get about ten of these new sign-up mps per hour (of trying). He then goes to the tables and ATTEMPTS to spend
them. Sometimes the Pit Boss will shoe him
away like the annoying flea that he is, but mostly they tolerate him if he doesnt
make a nuisance of himself. If they wont let HIM use them, hell ask a current
player if theyll let him piggy-back the mp under their own line-bet (or spot-bet in
BJ). He also sells off some of the excess
coupons to his fellow coupon-traders who call Las Vegas, home. And THAT is his ENTIRE daily routine. I watched him do
his thing over at Palace Station for the better part of three hours. Although he is fairly friendly when he talks to
his new card candidates, I couldnt help thinking that a more personable
(and cleaner) individual would have much more success in such an endeavor. The pit-guys at the Palace tolerate him as long as
he doesnt try to jump from table to table in hopes of squeezing in front of the
current shooter in hopes of being the next player to throw the dice, or as long as he
doesnt pester the customers too much for his piggy-back move. If he behaves, theyll put up with his
activities. If hes boorish or pushy,
theyll by-pass him with the dice when it is his turn to shoot. That pretty much straightens out his attitude and
behavior for a reasonable period of time.
Want
Some Free Money? Have
you ever been stopped by one of those timeshare-selling people in the lobby of your
casino/hotel or on the street in front of one? These
are the irritating sales people who start off their spiel with an innocuous question like,
Where are you folks from? and they follow it up with, How long
are you in town for? Then they tell
you about the free show tickets that they have for you to see the Blue Man Group at Luxor,
or Celine Dion at Caesars, etc. Some of the
timeshare companies also offer $50 or $100 meal vouchers to some of the finer, most
popular high-profile restaurants in Vegas.
This
is all done in an attempt to get you to sit through one of their timeshare condominium
sales presentations. For some people, this is
as pleasant as a root-canal performed in the garage of a recently certified
correspondence-school dental graduate, or as much fun as a 37-hour clothing-not-optional
interrogation by elite members of the Paraguayan secret police. However, some people are willing to sit through
this type of presentation if they are genuinely interested in buying a timeshare, or in
the case of the Coupon-Rustler, because they want to get their hands on the thanks-for-attending
vouchers. In
any event, the Coupon-Rustler uses his out-of-state (still current) drivers license from
Texas to actually sit through as many of them as he can.
He brings his wife with him to fulfill the spouse-must-attend
requirement. The free gifts for enduring one
of these presentations ranges from free top-line show tickets and/or free dining coupons
at some very nice restaurants, all the way to match-plays and/or coin vouchers. At
any given time, there are 50 to 70 timeshare projects actively being hawked to LVs
40-million annual tourists. In
most cases, the Rustler sells his show and restaurant vouchers back to various ticket
agents who have booths set up around town. They
simply resell them to the tourists who frequent those booths. For a list of where some of the ticket-booths are,
take a look at Part I
of this series. In other cases, hell
resell them (at less of a discount) directly to tourists whom he befriends throughout his
daily travels. He says that waiting in line
for a buffet is the BEST place to meet potential clients. So even though he may have a line-pass which would
let him jet past the hungry hordes of waiting masses, hell intentionally stand with
the crowds just so he can hawk his wares. I
was actually surprised at the large number of people who are always on the look out for a
good bargain when they are on vacation in Sin City. To
the Coupon-Rustlers mind, he is simply helping to fulfill a need that most vacationers
have, and that is, to get a great deal at a fair price.
Actually when he puts it in that perspective, I can see why he is so
successful at what he does, and why there is never a shortage of customers. By
getting various ticket agents to buy (and then re-sell) those $50 or $100 vouchers for
places like Emerils Fish House, Delmonicos, and Monte Carlo Steakhouse, etc. or the $100
BMG, $85 Gladys Knight, or $100 Mamma Mia show tickets, hes able to yield about 50%
of the face value (the ticket agent pockets the rest).
But when he resells them to ready-to-pony-up-the-cash vacationers, hes
able to reap a much higher 66% to 75% profit off of the face-value. By
Now You Might be Thinking
Is
MONEY the only thing that the Coupon-Rustler thinks about? Well,
the short answer, appropriately enough, is YES!
From the moment that he walks into a casino until the time he gets back into
his Expedition to head on home for the night
he is continually on the hustle to buy,
sell and trade coupons. That is what he does,
and he certainly does it quite well. Hitting
27 Casinos in One Day
We
spent the rest of the day by hitting one casino right after the other. I got to all six of my targets out on
Boulder Highway and another four of them down in Henderson.
I made my appointed rounds to seven downtown spots, plus six additional
objectives in North LV and Summerlin. Hitting
27 casinos in one day gives a whole new meaning to the old hit and run, get in,
get up, get it done, get gone approach to gaming. Admittedly
I was tired, but there was still two more things to do before I bedded-down back at my
base of operations in NYNY.
Who
The Hell Stays at Circus Circus?
I
checked-in through the VIP lounge at Circus Circus to take advantage of their comped-room
offer and generous $200 in cash with an equal amount in match-play (four books of ten $5
coupons each, plus their regular Funbook). Again,
these phantom stays are necessary to take full benefit of
guest-only m-p offers. They
didnt have a limit-per-use-per-day restriction, so I could use them all at one time
if I chose to (and if my Precision-Shooting was zeroed-in). After I got my cash-voucher
and match-plays, I ventured into the rearmost northern section of the Skyrise Casino to
see if their satellite mini-tub craps table was open.
Just as I expected, it was not, so I settled for their regular-length tables in the
main casino. For a detailed look at their
mini-tub, please refer to my Mad Professor's Mini Tub Tour - Part VII
article. I
had walked by the Energy Drink Challenge sampling-booth near the Grand Slam
Canyons Adventuredome that was unmanned at this late hour, but I figured all the
kids in the West Tower would still be cranked up and wide awake until at least the next
lunar eclipse. I
knew if I actually tried to sleep at Circus Circus, Id be up all night listening to
the thundering herd of over-amped kids as they burnt off their final 14-billion megawatts
of caffeine from their all-day taste-test binge-drinking of Jolt Cola, Piranha, Monster,
Shock, Whoop Ass, Buzz Water, Tunnel, Bawls Guarana, and Sky Rocket. To
answer the age-old question of Who the hell stays at Circus Circus?,
the truth lays deeply buried in the Parents with 11,973 unruly kids who are still
rampaging through the hotel at 3:17 a.m. answer. The
craps tables in the Main Casino were still quite busy, and I ended up squandering five of
my vouchers on some random-rollers. Calculating
the true cost of impatience came when I had to deduct those R-R losses from the otherwise
excellent results that I got from my own shooting. Even
with match-plays, the whole discipline thing on ANY random-rollers is not something to be
trifled with. Its important to remember
that match-plays are just like real money, and should not be wasted. After playing all of todays comp-offer
m-ps along with a few of the regular CC $7-for-$5 coupons, I headed out with a
healthy, but somewhat diminished profit.
From
CC, I headed over to the HardRock. For a
detailed look at this place, I would invite you to read my
Home at the Hard Rock
Casino - Hotel
article. It was on this evening that I found
out that their formerly-famous unlimited match-plays had been phased-out entirely in favor
of the much cheaper (and less riskier for the casino) Six-Pack coupon
alternative that was worth a measly $10. As
I had at Circus Circus, I also checked-in here for what I intended to be another
phantom-stay. I got $30 in free play, $50 in
sign-it-to-your-room food comps, plus another $10 Six-Pack sheet. The
French-doors on my suite overlooked the topless Blue Lagoon portion of the legendary pool
area. The balcony is the size of a small
suitcase. Okay, I exaggerated; its the
size of a VERY small suitcase (or a large laptop computer case). However, nothing says good morning
quite like a cup of coffee and an eyeful of no-tan-lines bounteous breasts at rest or at
play on the beach below. Based
on the fact that I was dead-tired (and NOT based on the approaching daylights
boobies in the sun reason), I decided to crash here for the night. I always keep a bug-out bag in the car
in the event that I have to improvise, adapt or overcome for a few days (for virtually any
situation or reason), so I had an adequate change of clothes in there. As opposed to Circus Circus, I didnt have to
count sheep, mammary glands or coupons to drift off to sleep in this place. Until
Day Five, Good
Luck & Good Skill at the tables, and in Life. Sincerely, The Mad Professor
|
|