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The Match-Play Coupon
Circuit Part IV An Editorial Note
from the Mad Professor Ive received
a surprising amount of e-mail from readers regarding this series of articles. Two themes stand out in the correspondence. The first is the
amount of surprise that people express when they find out the value of a match-play coupon
that they previously just discarded. People
seem genuinely shocked that they have been literally throwing away a huge ~49.3%
advantage. Well dear and
gentle reader, NOW YOU KNOW, and your Thank-yous are certainly welcome! The second theme
that emerged from the e-box is that readers want to know how to get started in collecting
and redeeming coupons. They want more
knowledge about the ins and outs of the Coupon-Circuit lifestyle, and to learn
what methods the wily Coupon Rustling experts use to snag and redeem more
coupons, more often. Part IV and V of this
series will answer those questions, and so much more.
And Yet Another
Great Offer
There is a free
match-play laden American Casino Guide offer (a $15 retail value with about $1000 worth of
coupons) currently being offered in liquor stores across most states. The offer requires
the purchase of either 1.75 liters of Schenley American Whiskey, Northern Light Canadian
Whiskey or Fleischmanns Vodka (all from the very deep Constellation Group mega-brand
liquor reservoir). The current offer is valid until August 31, 2003, but a VP-marketing
friend tells me that the popularity of the promo may see it offered again much earlier
next year. The ACG coupons are valid until
December 31st, 2003. Right now,
lets get back to the coupon tour: Day Two on the
Match-Play Circuit I decided to keep
my room at the Golden Nugget for one more night, and check-in for a concurrent stay at
NewYork NewYork so that I could take advantage of their $300 in match-plays, and $100 in
food-credit offer that was part of their comped Marquis-suite 3-day, 2-night seasonal
promotion. I started off
Day Two by hitting all of downtown casino-neighbors of Golden Nugget for a quick
redemption campaign. The results were close
to Day Ones equal in the money department, but I was able to make the rounds
much, much quicker as my confidence and comfort in doing multiple redemptions rose. Another Try at
Golden Gate My luck for being
able to cash MORE coupons at Golden Gate remained exactly the same as the previous day. That is, they restricted me to betting just one
coupon per shift, and wouldnt tolerate any attempt at using BJ-only coupons at the
craps table. On the other hand, their $5 and
$10 craps coupons did spin a small profit nearly every single day of the remaining week. I once again used
my Long-Ranger grip and throw on their 24-player tables with surprising success. I used to avoid this place simply because of
their long tables. I figured that there was
no reason to gamble unnecessarily if I didnt have to. In my mind, the shorter alternatives at most of
the other Glitter Gulch casinos offered a chance to engineer more of the risk OUT of my
play, while GGs long tables seemed to make it riskier. Given the choice, I avoided their tables like the
plague. NOW, its a totally different
story, thanks to the Long Ranger. Long-Ranger Grip
& Throw Revisited
In my five-part
series, Long Tables = Po$$ibilitie$, we looked at the
creation, development, and the successful use of a new grip and throw technique. I can attribute
most of my current success at the GGs long tables to my Long Ranger approach. For those of you who experience a dramatic decline
in on-axis success as the length of the table increases, a closer consideration of this
method may be warranted. While your own
personal mileage may vary, it may provide you with a solid base from which to
bring more consistency from longer throwing distances. More Opportunities
on The Strip Once I finished my
downtown Casino Center coupon-run, I headed over to the Strip, and proceeded to hit a
number of places on the way to my ultimate South Strip destination. My first stop was: Stratosphere,
where I had a ton of $10 and $25 match-plays that were valid for Blackjack-only. My conversion-rate (the ability to successfully
use them at a craps table) was VERY low. I
ended up selling about twenty of them for just over 25% of their face-value to one of the
local coupon-rustling regulars. I did not
include that cash bounty into my overall profit calculations, however, I learned that
there is actually a gray market for the buying and selling of these coupons,
especially the BJ ones. A little later in the
day, I would put that new knowledge to good (and profitable) use. I did get to use a
quite a few of those cheaper bet $5 and win $7 coupons at the craps table,
where they permitted me about a dozen mp-hits on the Field when I went on a 9, 10,
11 and 12 streak during one part of a particularly good hand. Part of that win was diluted by the fact that $1
from each coupon-win went directly into the dealers toke-box. It was a small price to pay for being able to use
so many of them at one time. From there I headed
to the: Riviera
Hotel-Casino They are always
handing out those same lower value $7-payoff-if-you-win-a-$5-craps-bet
vouchers. I was surprised that the tables
were so dead at this time of the late morning. Usually
the tourists from mid-America have at least one, if not two tables going full tilt. When I got in there, two tables were open but the
dealers were standing dead. The Pit Manager
greeted me and said, I was beginning to wonder if there were any craps players
left in town. Much to our chagrin,
as soon as I bought-in and started shooting, a couple more players wandered over to have a
look. Within about seven minutes, we had nine
new players lined up, all with money in hand. My
first roll lasted another ten or twelve more throws.
As soon as I
7d-Out, I caught the eye of the Pit Supervisor and told him Id get Table #2
started. He moved my Rating Card to the
plastic holder beside the idle boxman before I had even completed my own transition. I mouthed a silent thank-you as I set
up my cheques at the second table. While I play for
profit and not for comps, I want to ensure that I get the full benefits that continuous
and accurate player ratings give me insofar as freebies are concerned. By making certain that my Rating Card follows my
action, I increase my chances of continually enjoying the Lifestyles of the
Precision-Shooter. A couple of players from Table #1 soon filtered over, and yet
more new players showed up seemingly out of nowhere. I used another
7-for-5 mp at this table. As I was setting up
another bet for my second Come-Out, the boxman glanced over his shoulder towards the
Pitmeister in an inquiring sort of way, vis-à-vis my continued use of the match-play
coupons. Herr Pitmeister held up one
admonishing finger to indicate theyd let me use one more voucher in an unconditional
AND THAT IS IT! sort of way. I
still had a sizeable pile of mps that I knew Id have to hang onto for another
day. From there I headed over to the: Stardust Again I was
relegated to using their Gamblers Choice funbooks $7-payoff-for-a-$5-bet
coupons. I ended up staying here for a couple
of hours because my shooting-accuracy became almost unconscious in its preciseness. Normally, my on-axis/primary-face outcome
performance never lasts unabated for more than a couple of hands in a row, especially at a
semi-filled table. However, the one layout
directly in front of the main Cashiers Cage kept right on rolling perfectly for me. The game was busy but not overly crowded. The dice were landing so well that I didnt
mind enduring the wait for the dice to cycle back to me again and again. To while away the
time, I generally used the Short-Leash Choppy Table Method that I explained in great
detail in my Dodging Bullets as a Darksider article. This is one of the steadiest, low-risk
money-makers that is now part of my work-a-day Playbook.
On a $5 table, this method brings in a steady $35 to $55 per hour, day in
and day out. If you have to endure the
random choppiness of random-rollers you might as well take advantage of it while you
patiently wait for your turn to shoot again. From
the Dust, I took a short side-trip to: SlotsoFun
As I mentioned
before, I somehow wound up with an armful of SoF and CircusCircus funbooks. They both contain the 2-for-1 ($10 payoff if you win a $5 Field bet) coupon. These are excellent payers especially when used
by Precision-Shooters who throw lots of crap-numbers, especially on the Come-Out. I will caution you
however that the box-guy starts to get a little crazy if you pull out a tall stack of
these 2-Fers when you start to shoot.
Theyll tolerate about four or five wins, then theyll tell you to
save the rest for next time. For some reason, I
never seem to have a lot of fun when I play at a happily named place like Slots
o Fun (Cheap Craps Guide Part Two), even with their $1 or $2 minimum
bets. Nevertheless, the
night-of-the-living-dead dealers always seem to perk up when I approach the table. I can tell you that its not because of my
charming personality and warm smile, its simply because they know that some small
tokes will always be in action for them when I shoot.
Both smiles and tokes are a true rarity at this place. From Lots o Frowns
I tracked over to: Westward Ho Hey, its hard
to hate the Ho (Cheap Craps Guide Part One) when you peel away the
low-rent touristy façade and expose the seedy underbelly of this sawdust gambling beast. I was supposed to meet up with one of the
coupon-rustling pros who frequent this place, but he was a no-show. I didnt have any coupons of my own, but I
still played one quick HitnRun session for a speedy, but tiny profit. The table is practically on the street and the
throngs of people eating the 18-inch long, 1¼ pound $1.49 Ho-dog (if you're really brave,
click here ) as they watch
dice fly for the first time in their lives is both amusing and bemusing. Ive never stuck around long enough to see if
any of them actually join in the game (or actually finish off one of those
Chernobyl-dogs), but Im sure both the game and the dogs gives them some
stories to bring back home to the folks in Acme, Wyoming. You Asked and You
Shall Receive As I mentioned
earlier, a lot of people have written to ask about the basics in taking advantage of these
positive-expectation coupons. So, today you
get a double bonus. Not only do we trace a
few more steps of my weeklong exploits on the Circuit, we also get to share in the
knowledge of a bona-fide expert in this field. Some Good Advice
from our Friend, Yahtzee You may recognize
the YahtzeeCA message board handle since he is a
frequent contributor to
Las Vegas On-Line, while his posts
on Dicesetter and Axiscraps are under a completely different name. In any event, I
want to thank him and credit him for his very valuable contributions to this article, and
for giving me his kind permission to share his keen insight. Yahtzee devotes a
fair bit of time to improving his dicesetting skills and is an accomplished craps player,
as well as a die-hard Full-Pay Deuces Wild video-poker player. He not only knows his way around the Las Vegas
landscape, but also has an excellent view into the inner-workings of Coast Resorts
(especially Orleans Hotel and Gold Coast) and Station Casinos (especially Fiesta-Henderson
and Sunset Station), where he is on a first-name basis with most dealers, table-game
supervisors and casino hosts. Coupon-Trading
Advice from Yahtzee This is for those of you who are interested in trading coupons on the Las Vegas On-Line Coupon Exchange website. If you visit Las
Vegas only once a year, it might not be worth your time, effort, and/or money to invest in
coupon trading (with the exception of the $15
American
Casino Guide). Just go and enjoy yourself. Don't worry about
saving a couple of bucks here or there. Your vacation time is more valuable. If you visit Las
Vegas twice a year, consider purchasing the ACG and an "online subscription" of
Las Vegas Advisor (LVA).
Membership Benefits and
Cost Options are fully
explained. If you visit Las
Vegas more than twice a year, it would be foolish not to join LVA. Depending on the nature of your gambling and
dining and/or entertainment requirements, you might also consider purchasing one of the
Casino Perks packages.. If you do Vegas more
than twice a year, as well as a couple of trips to other major gambling destinations like
Atlantic City or Connecticut; then I would consider purchasing
Casino Player for their
bonus-pack that subscribers receive as well as purchasing the American Casino Guide. A match-play coupon
is like real money. In general, it's rare to find people on the Coupon
Exchange who will just give away free Match-Plays and good buffet coupons, they want to
trade for other valuable coupons in exchange. In
addition, most casinos do not usually just give them away unless it's included in a
Funbook, coupon-sheet, or when you check-in as a guest. If you are
interested in reading about any of Yahtzees ten (10) most recent coupon-run Trip
Reports you will find them at: http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1441 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1396 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1334 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1284 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1230 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1178 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1169 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1108 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1078 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=1061 http://www.lasvegastripreport.com/display_tr.php3?tr_id=954 Check Out this
Check-In Usually whenever I
stay at NYNY I get to check in through their VIP Player Lounge. It used to be right behind the regular Check-In
area, but they have since moved it to a larger spot just across the hall from its original
digs. The only problem with the promo that I
was utilizing for this stay was that it did not allow Player Club check-in. Rather, you have to stand in the VIP/Invited
Guests line-up right beside their regular guests. This
little inconvenience added forty minutes to what should be a three-minute process. I guess I must be
spoiled when the problem of standing behind six other people becomes an issue, but I had
been operating on much less sleep than normal because of the excess running around that I
was doing chasing after more and more match-plays. It
was starting to look an awful lot like work to me. Nevertheless, the promotional free-stay offer
came with six $50 two-a-day match-plays that yielded a 66% profit-margin (I won four out
of the six mps) for a net $300 NYNY match-play win. They gave me a
Players Marquis mini-suite in the Century Building. Its not really a suite, but more like an
L-shaped room with a cloverleaf-shaped Jacuzzi in the living-room. However it was made all the better since therein
awaited a table-clothed room-service trolley loaded with a fruit basket, a wicker barrel
filled with wine, assorted preserves and enough plastic hay to make a barnyard full of
Fisher-Price animals very happy. I generally
re-gift these items to some of the service-industry people (dry-cleaners, car
detailers, mechanics, landscapers, etc) who help make my life run a little smoother (and
cleaner). A little later, I
made the circuit of the surrounding casinos, starting with: The
Tropicana where they have two versions of their popular free coupon-sheets. Only one has a $5 match-play on it, while the
other one offers a couple of crappy food and merchandise discounts. As I mentioned previously, they also keep some
fun-books under the counter where they hand out and bag the logo-merchandise from their
$40-of-slot-play-for-$20 promotion. Most of the
old-time craps dealers know me by name, and the rest know me by sight. Im continually amazed that some of them
continue to work for the declining-Trop, when they are clearly qualified to work at better
toke-earning places. I guess they are all
comfortable in their current pair of shoes. The upside of the
goodwill that Ive engendered in here over the years paid off in the fact that they
let me play fifteen match-plays in a row without so much as a wry comment. I had taken the fifteen mps with me just so
that I would have more than enough to play with.
Hell, if I had known that theyd let me play all of them, I would have
brought over the entire pile (40 in total) that I had been accumulating over the past
several months. Even though they are only $5
each, I still yielded a handsome profit of $75 for the effort. When I returned the next day, the swing-shift Pit
Boss was a little less tolerant, and only permitted five redemptions at one session. It took a total of five days to employ all of them
for a net-win of just under $300. How I Calculate
Net-Profit The amounts that we
discuss in this series relates to match-play coupon bets ONLY. Any money that I made off of craps but without a
match-play coupon in action was not included. The way that I
calculate net-profit from these mps is to take the total profit that each bet
delivers and subtract it from any losing ones. For
example, with The Trops $5 coupon, I would bet one $5 chip along with the mp-coupon
underneath my wager. If the bet loses, I
lose $5. If the bet wins, I win $10. That win is made up of the $5 profit that my $5
even-money flat-bet wins, plus another $5 that the casino matches
because of the coupon. You can easily see why
having a +49.3% advantage over the casino pays off even if you are only winning
half of the time. If you only use them on
your own Precision-Shooting efforts, a 65% to 75% success-rate is not that unusual at all. With that level of win-rate, your profits easily
mount and multiply. Miles To Go Before
I Rest From The Tropicana,
I intended to hit the South-Strip MBG-triumvirate of Excalibur, Luxor and
Mandalay Bay. As it turned
out, I didnt need to go to Mandalay at all because they let me use my MB match-plays
at Luxor. Had I known that, I would have
skipped the Excal altogether, and used every one of these guest funbook coupons at the
more forgiving (and less crowded) Luxor tables in the first place. I obviously still had a lot more to learn about
the nuances, tricks and short-cuts of the coupon-circuit business. From that point, I
proceeded to hit Casino Royale, Imperial Palace, The HardRock Hotel and The
Riviera (again) for one more late-night round of redemptions. Yes, I was taking a roundabout route, but it was
so that I could make a stop along the way to hook up with some coupon-traders who meet
regularly at the Key Largo Casino to swap coupons, lies and clank a few beer glasses
together. That stop let me
unload a bunch of BJ match-plays that I knew I couldnt convert for use at their
respective craps tables (or for places that dont even have craps tables). In return, I got a handful of craps-only vouchers
that I knew I could use on Day Three and beyond. I
also picked up a few pointers from a couple of mp-pros who were willing to take me
under their wing if I was willing to part with a number of my Free Buffet coupons that I
had little intent on using for myself. That coupon
swap-deal would bring a few surprises and a lot more insight on Day Three. I hope you join me then. Good Luck &
Good Skill at the Tables
and in Life. Sincerely, The Mad Professor
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