Coupon Running
Here is your crash course on running coupons. In all cases you will need to use your slot club membership card and be willing to stake some of your own money.
Contents:
Types of Coupons
Match Plays
Strategy
Slot Credits
Other gambling promos
Food and Drinks
How to get promos
Sign up for slot club
Use LVA coupon
Be old
Mention bloggers
Airline boarding passes
Get paid by check
Types of Coupons
Match Plays
These are usually given in the form of paper slips or chip-like tokens and used on table games like blackjack, craps, or roulette. They apply to even-money bets. You bet the required amount, say $10, along with a match play token, and show your club card. If you win, instead of being paid $10, you are paid $20. If you lose, the casino takes both your original bet of $10 and the match play token.Strategy
The maximum expected-value strategy is to bet the maximum for a variable-amount coupon, or whatever the coupon specifies, and then play the optimal strategy for the game. These are high-variance; meaning they return either 200% or -100% of your bet.
Anyone who is not comfortable with that variance might consider pooling their wins and losses with other people if they are trustworthy.
Slot Credits
This gives you free promotional play on slot machines or video poker. You start by putting your card into the machine. Sometimes you first have to bet a nominal amount of your own money; say $10. Then they will load credits onto your card account. You have to put your card in the machine, type in a password, and usually press a button that says something like "promo" or "transfer promo credit" etc. Sometimes you need to choose the amount to transfer, up to the credit they gave you, so just do the amount of the promo. Don't forget to cash out and take your card with you when you leave!
Strategy
In my opinion, the best approach to cash out your promo credits is to play video poker; specifically the Jacks or Better ("JoB") variant. Most such VP games have a theoretical return above 98 or 99% if you play optimally or even close to optimally, but with a somewhat high variance. Other games have more complicated optimal strategies.Here are some tips if you are just after as much free money as you can get, and are not into actually playing video poker.
- Cash Management: One of the easiest things you can do to maximize your return is:
- once you have your slot credits, press the "cash out" button after every play. This will pay you your cash winnings while keeping the promotional credit on the machine as you play it down, and avoids co-mingling of your winnings (which can be cashed out) and the promo play (which has to be played). Otherwise it's hard to tell how much of your credits are promo vs. the cash you invested or won earlier.
- Keep doing this until you have exhausted your promo credits. You should end up with a bunch of paper tickets for small amounts that you won on each individual hand.
- Once you are out of promo credits, feed all of your small-value cash vouchers back into the machine and press "cash out" one last time. This will give you a single ticket with a value of the total of all the little tickets that you can take to the cash machine.
- The best pay table pays 9 x bet for a full house and 6 x bet for a flush; this is sometimes called "9/6 JoB", but is uncommon. Often you can only find "8/6 JoB" or other variants like Bonus Poker. That's fine. However, VP variants that use wild cards have a much more complicated optimal strategy so I usually avoid them.
- The website vpfree2.com can help you find the best machines in the casino.
- Sometimes you can choose a higher denomination (25c, 50c, $1) and get a better pay table, if you are comfortable with the risk.
- If you are comfortable with the variance, it's best to bet 5x the minimum because there is a huge bonus if you are fortunate enough to hit a royal flush. That is, on a 25c game you would be playing $1.25 per hand, etc.
- You get free drinks when you play. In my experience, the most frequent service is at bars with VP on the bartop, and these also often are the best machines.
- Here is a near-optimal simplified strategy for 9/6 JoB. It should also be pretty close to optimal for most other variants that don't use wild cards. For details, here is the source. A key takeaway is that any pair is usually worth keeping, even a low pair that itself is a loser. Also, unsuited straights are usually not worth reaching for unless you have an "outside" straight that can be made with either of 2 cards (e.g. 4-5-6-7 could be completed with either a 3 or an 8), and only if you don't have to throw away a paired card for it.
Jacks or Better Simple Strategy
To use the strategy look up all viable ways to play an initial hand on the following list and elect that which is highest on the list. A "high card" means a jack or higher.
- Four of a kind, straight flush, royal flush
- 4 to a royal flush
- Three of a kind, straight, flush, full house
- 4 to a straight flush
- Two pair
- High pair
- 3 to a royal flush
- 4 to a flush
- Low pair
- 4 to an outside straight
- 2 suited high cards
- 3 to a straight flush
- 2 unsuited high cards (if more than 2 then pick the lowest 2)
- Suited 10/J, 10/Q, or 10/K
- One high card
- Discard everything
Other Gambling Promos
There are some other coupons like a bonus for a blackjack at a table, a bonus for a 4 of a kind in VP, free bingo somethingorother etc. These tend to be unique to each casino that offers them and usually are likely to require you to gamble significant money to acquire some amount of points, perhaps for a substantially bigger return. I don't recommend them to people who aren't comfortable gambling.
Food and Drinks
Free Champagne, Free cocktails or beers, 2-for-1 buffets, 2-for-1 entrees, etc. We have them, it would truly be a shame not to use them.
How to Get the Promos
You have to go to the slot club booth for everything and show your ID. There are 3 primary ways, and you should ask about all of them every time you go to the slot club booth. No need to be embarrassed, this is what these lower-wage customer service employees do for a living and you are not anywhere close to the cheapest person they have ever seen. If it makes you feel better, they accept tips, and I wouldn't be surprised if that affects their generosity.
- Sign up for the slot club. You will have to anyway to use the coupon and may get additional freebies.
- Use a coupon from the LVA coupon book.
- Be at least 50 or 55. (South Point, Silverton)
- Bring your boarding pass from your inbound flight to Vegas. These may only be valid within 24 hours of arriving, and may only apply to some airlines. (at the D, Golden Gate (?), and El Cortez)
- Mention some youtube gambling-focused influencers (at the D hotel on Fremont Street): Richard Wilks, Matt Bridger, Say Hi to Matthew, Brian Christopher, Trooper 97. Some of these may be redundant and your mileage may vary.
- Use a free coupon in the American Casino Guide Book app. I think this mostly has food offers. I recommend Magnolia's at the 4 queens, it's the best coffee shop downtown. The app has a 2-for-1 coupon.
- For the unbanked among us, a few casinos still will give you some bonus cash if you receive your salary by check and you cash your paycheck or tax refund at the casino. See if you can ask your payroll dept to cut you a check just for this Friday and remember to thank God that you live in America.
Notes on Specific Casinos
- Offers at the El Cortez may be mutually exclusive on the same day so you may have to optimize there. However I think all the others you can all use at once.
- The Legacy Club at the Circa offers a coupon for free champagne at their rooftop deck. However they ostensibly have a dress code for men: shorts are ok but they have to be golf-type shorts, collared shirts only, no sandals. They told me things will probably be more relaxed on a 105 degree Monday afternoon than a Saturday evening. Depending on how we are dressed and our desire for drinking close to the sun, we can decide in real time whether to partake.
- As I've said like 5 or 6 times now, the South Point breakfast buffet coupon needs to be printed directly from the web site.
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