Session Money and length of trip

[Bankerdude80]

The typical rule of thumb in budgeting for a craps excursion is to set a daily bankroll (BR) and then divide the daily BR into the number of sessions you plan to play. When one doesn't live near any casinos that offer live craps play, how long is your average Las Vegas visit? Two nights? Three? If you have an awesome first session, do you lock it up for the rest of the trip? From anecdotal experience, when have you been most successful (overall): on a short trip (1-2 nights)? or a long one (3 nights or more)? Obviously, the casino wants you there for as long as they can have you...

[heavy]

For players with a limited bankroll (I think I just described all of us) and in particular those who don't get to Vegas often - I always recommend what I call "the envelope" system. Let's say you're going to be in Vegas 4 days - 3 nights - and you plan to play 1 session on day 1 (mistake), three each on days 2 and 3, and one more on the morning of day 4. That's eight sessions. Now let's assume you have $2500 to play with over the course of your trip. A little simple math allows you to have $300 per session with a hundred bucks left to stick in your pocket for whatever - for me it's the hun I run through a high-limit slot looking for a lightning strike before leaving town.

The key to the envelope system is to ONLY take the current session's envelope into the casino with you. The rest of them remain in the safe in your room. Set a win objective and a loss limit. Let's say your loss limit if $150. What the heck, let's do a win goal of $150 as well. If, at any point, you find yourself down $150 then you have to end your session, color up, and leave the casino. That remaining $150 goes into a seventh envelope - this one with the word HOME printed on it. Let's say you find yourself ahead $200 at some point during your session. Pocket your initial buy-in plus a $150 guaranteed win and continue to play with the remaining $50. As long as you continue to win - continue to play. But if at any time you lose three consecutive bets - or half of that $50 - pocket it as well and end the session. Like your loss limit cash - your original buy-in and winnings gets stuffed into the HOME envelope. Continue this process every session. It's enforced money management and discipline. And at the end of the trip you are guaranteed not to have lost more than half of your bankroll - and you more than likely will be around even or ahead for the trip.

Let's say you get to the morning of the fourth day and you have a $600 win in your HOME envelope. Want to get a little more action in your last session? Go ahead and take up to half of your winning and add them to your final session bankroll. Let's say you take $200 of your winnings and add it to your $300 session bankroll for the last day. Go on down and buy in for $500 this session. Make some larger bets. Go for a larger win. But if you lose half of your session stake - say $250 in this example - then it's once again time to call it quite and stuff that HOME envelope with your remaining cash.

My worst first-day loss in Vegas - a little over $3K a few years back. Nothing went right anywhere I went. Had to access my credit line at a couple of properties to re-charge the bankroll for the weekend. Switched to playing the Don'ts and went home ahead something like twenty bucks for the weekend when it was all over. Great story to tell in hindsight. Miserable thing to experience.

[Bankerdude80]

I always recommend what I call "the envelope" system.

I like it HEAVY. Simple and straightforward.

[Blackcloud]

UNHH!!BC usually back two sets of 3 comped nights together which covers 6,5 days.
The casinos do not want you to stay past your money; that is why comped stays are of short duration.