Chasing bonuses

[KJ]

For about a year now, I have had a monthly routine of going on a low limit bonus run throughout Vegas with a buddy who is a low limit player. Stuff like $5 and $10 matchplays, some from ACG, some other sources. Some free plays from monthly mailers plus deals like the Palms monthly internet deal of $40 worth of play for $25, a few winchip promotions, a couple which are still monthly and some which have gone semi-annually, ect. Small time stuff that usually adds up to EV of anywhere from $80 to $150 for the day, plus of course some free or severely discounted meals. For me it's just a fun day out, a chance to make a little money and it usually doesn't involve my regular rotation of stores.

Anyway over time this grew from one day a month, and we weren't even doing it every month at the beginning, to where it takes 2 days most months. A number of months ago, we started concentrating a bit more on VP play, giving a number of places that cater to locals a minimum amount of VP play to get some mailers rolling in. And roll in they have. I now get mailers each month from well over a dozen locals type casinos that all have some amount of free play on them, some also have match plays as well as free or discounted meals. Some extremely generous for the very limited amount of play that I give them, for example there is one place far south on LVB that I gave almost exactly $1000 worth of play last month, which cost me about $10 in EV and I received a mailer for March containing $180 in freeplay. That is a pretty nice return. The problem is that $180 in free play is spread out over 9 selected days of $20 per day. Most of the free play offers are either broken up into once a week segments or on selected days. One property, Eastside Cannery, which in my opinion is the most generous of the local type places, gives me something everyday of the week, $10 worth of free play 5 days a week and a free $10 gift card (no play required) to Walmart on the 6th day and a $10 gift card to a local grocery store on the 7th. And don't even get me started on the gifts, shirts, blankets ect, most of which I don't bother with. I have enough shirts to cloth the vegas homeless population. lol

The offers are so plentiful over the last couple months that I have to set up a schedule so I know what I am doing and where I have to go each day. I just finished setting up my March schedule and I have over $1100 in free play offers, at least some every day, usually at a number of places each day, while still expecting offers from 2 more stores yet. March is even more exaggerated because it is my birthday month which comes with even more offers, plus there are a number of well publicized birthday offers throughout Vegas, like a $25 free table game bet (not a matchplay, but free bet) and $25 birthday cash voucher and about a dozen more.

Add to this that last weekend, in the mail I received my quarterly local's Palms mailing. This goes to every local resident, not just members and included in the mailer is a $10 BJ matchplay and a $10 Roulette match Play which expires march 31 and a second set of $10 BJ and roulette MP which expires May 20. Upon receiving this mailer, I scoured not only the mail room trash of my building but that of several others and came up with a enough of these that I have been using 2 sets per day the last week and will have at least one set per day for the next 3 months.

The bottom line is, that in looking at this March schedule that I just printed out, I am pushing 2 grand in EV expectation while still expecting 2 more mailers, which is great, but I don't know when I am going to find time to actually play blackjack this month.