{"id":122612,"date":"2022-04-05T09:56:10","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T16:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=122612"},"modified":"2022-04-05T09:56:17","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T16:56:17","slug":"not-everybody-will-understand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/not-everybody-will-understand\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Everybody Will Understand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bonnie and I sometimes shop at Sprouts Farmers Market, which is a cross between a regular grocery store and a health food store. In my weekly email, I saw an announcement that between March 18 and March 31, any Sprouts purchase earns you a coupon (on the bottom of your register receipt), entitling you to $10 off of a $75 purchase between April 1 and April 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since we spend a couple of hundred dollars there every month, these coupons are valuable. I might take some jockeying in a single trip to get at least $75, but not too much over, so the next week we can do it again — but I\u2019m up to that task. And I\u2019ll make sure to get three or four of these coupons before the end of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a Sprouts less than a mile from the South Point and it can be on the way between our house and the casino. It\u2019s also close to the gym I frequent. At 7:15 a.m. on March 18, the first day of the promotion, I went by Sprouts and bought two navel oranges for about $1.50. Any purchase will get you the coupon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The receipt didn\u2019t have the coupon at the bottom. I asked the cashier, and he didn\u2019t know anything about it. I asked to speak to the manager, and I showed her my email from Sprouts discussing the promotion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She concluded that I was correct. She\u2019d have to call up corporate and ask them how she was supposed to honor that commitment when the coupon wasn\u2019t automatically printing at the bottom of the receipt. She didn\u2019t want me to have to wait while she did all of that, so she created and gave me a $10 Sprouts gift card! Basically $10 cash on a $1.50 purchase. And you can bet that I\u2019ll still collect at least three of these coupons before the end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are 10 or so Sprouts markets in greater Las Vegas, but they are too far apart, and I was too busy to be interested in visiting additional ones the same day to see if I could collect again. For $50 apiece I wouldn\u2019t have been too busy. For $10, I was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At South Point that day, I lost about $750. No big deal. Normal swing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I later explained to Bonnie about my $10 win at Sprouts, she was dutifully impressed. Then I told her I felt great about that $10 win while the $750 loss immediately afterwards didn\u2019t bother me at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonnie\u2019s comment was, \u201cYour thinking is so messed up!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wasn\u2019t upset. She was just bemused. We keep our finances separate so she\u2019s really insulated from my gambling swings and doesn\u2019t pay a lot of attention to them. But my thought processes are very different from hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess most people feel that their own way of thinking makes sense, and I\u2019m no exception to this. My gambling score will take care of itself. I\u2019m playing with an advantage for relatively small stakes. That will all work out. If not at the South Point this year, then somewhere else. If not this year, then next year, and the year after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been doing this long enough that I\u2019m very confident that if I keep playing games where I have the edge, eventually the odds will work themselves out in my favor. It\u2019s relatively simple math. The swings along the way don\u2019t matter very much to me as they are small relative to my bankroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sprouts $10, however, was \u201cfound money.\u201d It was close to being a trivial amount, but far more satisfying than finding an abandoned quarter on the ground. I was only there because of their promotion, and I recognized when it wasn\u2019t being honored. I was able to explain it clearly enough and politely enough that they honored it in a way that was far more beneficial to me than the way the coupon was written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that the $10 win and $750 loss were on the same day was just a meaningless coincidence. Players who care about today\u2019s score won\u2019t agree with my logic at all. Players who are concerned with long term results just might find my logic makes sense to them as well.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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