We're Back!

Yes, we here at the TAR Casino Game are back again for another season of wagering, bonusing, awarding, and bad-joking. We are like clockwork... Autumn comes and so does the TAR Casino Game. We shall be doing this until TAR is either canceled or all of our logins suddenly stop working.

Speaking of which, if anyone is still having trouble logging in, just make sure you don't select the "Remember Me" button and it should work for ya.

A tiny bit of housekeeping, first of all, for the last Casino Game that I wanted to straighten-up. Looking over the wagers from the last finale, I accidentally miscored sarah1234's bet as regular bet instead of a bonus wager. She let me know about it via PM and I didn't actually see the message until much later.

So the corrected final scores are:

1. IanQuentin - 2600
2. KwietOne - 2529
3. Jims02 - 2248
4. flipxcyd - 2000
5. Molaholic - 1937
6. Ontheroadagain - 1860
7. sarah1234 - 1070
8. vennui - 1024
9. alemattos - 900
10. FFantasyFX - 740
11. louislam - 458
12. taffnic - 92

Sorry about the mix-up, sarah!

Anyway, a big Welcome Back to all our returning players, as well as an equally-sized Hello to all newbies who have stumbled onto this thread. To any new folks who may be confused by this whole thing, let's start with...

What's the TAR Casino Game?

The TAR Casino Game is a game in which players make wagers on the outcome of each leg of The Amazing Race. If you make good wagers and your teams do well, then you'll gain more points to use next week. If they don't as well, you'll go back a little bit. But even if you have a couple bad weeks, there's always time to catch up to the other players. We've seen people win the game after losing almost half their points in the first week!

Every player is given 20 points from the start, with the goal of accumulating as many points as possible until the end the game. The player with the highest total at the finale is the winner, and gets the prize of Supreme Bragging Rights until next season rolls around.

Last year's champ was IanQuentin, who is now a two-time winner. Can IanQuentin become the first person ever to win three TAR Casino Game titles? There's only one way to find out!

So, if you're new to these parts and are just checking us out, go ahead and register! Play a few rounds of the game, see how much you like it. Worst case scenario, you're out 5 minutes of your week. But it really is a lot of fun to make your picks and root for them each week. I recall during a few footraces to the finish line last year that were really exciting because of it.

Here be the full rules to the game.

Ye Olde Rules

1. Each player in Week 1 starts with 20 points. In every subsequent week, this amount decreases, so join now. Also, these are the only points you get, so don't waste them. Once you run out of points, you're out of the game.

2. Every week, you may choose to wager your points on the various teams. Later on, there will be limits on the max bet you can lay down, which will be covered in full next week.

3. You don't have to bet all your points. Any points you don't wager are banked, and will be carried over to the following week without risk.

4. Decimals are evil. All wagers must be a whole number. Also, in scoring your entries, all decimal points will be rounded up. It makes the scoreboard prettier that way. No one wants to see a final score of 693.22463 to 612.1935.

5. Absenteeism sucks. If you miss three straight entries, you're eliminated from the game. If you're going to be on vacation, send me a note and I'll keep the records.

6. All entries must be entered before showtime: Sunday, September 29th, 8 PM Eastern Time. Any entries after that time will not be counted. Any edits to an existing entry after the deadline will be penalized. The clock is based on the clock on this message board.

7. Your wagers will be scored based on the almighty Payout Table. The Payout Table gives a multiplier value to each ranking, and determines the return on your wagers. Each of your individual wagers are multiplied by their appropriate multipliers, and then totaled together.

For example, here's the Payout Table for Week 1.

Week 1 Payout Table
1st place - 2x
2nd place - 1.6x
3rd place - 1.3x
4th place - 1.2x
5th place - 1.1x
6th place - Break even
7th place - .9x
8th place - .8x
9th place - .7x
10th place - .4x
11th place - 0x

This is going to be based off of the final rankings at the end of the episode when they arrive at the Pit Stop.

Fictionalized Modern Life Example - You've got 20 points and you choose to wager them on the following fictional teams...

10 points - Rocko/Spunky
5 points - Heffer/Filburt
3 points - Ed/Bev
Bank 2 points.

Now let's pretend Rocko/Spunky finishes 2nd, Heffer/Filburt 9th, and Ed/Bev 11th.

Rocko/Spunky - 10 points * 1.6 (2nd place) = 16
Heffer/Filburt - 5 points * .7 (9th) = 3.5
Ed/Bev - 3 points * 0 (11th) = 0
+2 points banked

Total = 16 + 3.5 + 0 + 2 = 21.5 = 22 pts (rounding)

Overall, in this example, you'd manage to eek out a 2 point gain for the week and would start with 22 for next week. No a bad start, I'd say.

Here are the teams you will be wagering on.

TAR23 Teams Remaining
Ally/Ashley
Brandon/Adam
Chester/Ephraim
Hoskote/Naina
Jason/Amy
Leo/Jamal
Nicky/Kim
Rowan/Shane
Tim/Danny
Tim/Marie
Travis/Nicole

And that's it for me. Good luck everyone!

First TAR Casino Entry in my new condo and on my new computer. Clearly 2013 has been a year of transition.