Sample Casino Night Format

I have penned this little article to give you an idea of the format a standard casino night follows.

The Casino Night Location/Venue

For private casino nights to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, it is fairly easy to transform your home into a mini Las Vegas Casino (link) for the night. For a corporate casino night or charity casino night it is advisable to play it safe and seek out a hotel in your locality that has hosted a casino night before. Tip: Avoid paying for room hire. As long as you can guarantee most venues a minimum bar bill, most will allow you have your casino venue hire for free.

Casino Night Assembly

The dealers and casino equipment arrive at 6pm, prior to a 7pm start time. If you are arranging a casino night, it is absolutely vital to ensure your casino hire company shows up at least an hour before any major casino night. This allows for small organisational hiccups such as traffic delays, broken casino hire equipment and casino dealers calling in sick. Getting everything in place early also allows you to familiarise yourself with the dealers/croupiers and to make sure everybody is sure on the exact format of the casino night.

The choice of table games for your casino night

The choice of table games is a very important selection when it comes to hosting a successful casino night. What table game you choose depends very much on:

1) The casino night atmosphere you wish to create. If it is going to be a networking event with a casino night taking place in the background, you want “passive” games at your casino night. Blackjack and in particular roulette, are perhaps the easiest to understand and are widely loved all over the world. People can put their chips on the table, and one spin of the roulette wheel later; they have either doubled through or lost all of their money. When this happens, they can buy more chips or go back to networking. Poker is an “active” game, and takes much more concentration and commitment. Tensions can run high around a poker table, so if it is a laid back atmosphere you want, it is best to keep the poker to a minimum. Craps (or dice as it’s also known) can be lots of fun, but the rules are complicated and it will take people more than a few hours to grasp the basics. For a casino night with 80 people in attendance, a common table combination would be 3 blackjack tables, 2 roulette wheels and 1 craps/poker table.

2) The motives for holding the casino night - If it’s a charity casino night you are holding, you will want roulette tables as the majority of your tables. Roulette is the game that parts people with their chips in record speed. To raise the most money for your charity casino night, you will want people to stick by the roulette wheel. If it is a home birthday casino night, blackjack tables tend to be the most popular. This is down to a blackjack table being smaller than craps or roulette tables, which allows for more space in your domestic abode.

3) The type of guest who will attend your casino night. If you know a lot of the people who are attending your casino night like to play poker, then having a quick fire poker tournament well no doubt go down a treat. If most people attending your event are clueless about gambling, make sure the roulette wheels are nearby. Red or Black is one of the easiest choices they will ever make!

The grand casino night opening

Guests arrive at 7pm, greeted by the casino night host and a compare/dealer. Serve everybody with a drink of their choice. At 7.15pm, the head croupier or casino manager gives an introduction and brief on how the casino night works, the casino house rules and what people have to do to win.

5) Distribution of “play/fun money”

At 7.30pm - The head croupier hands out $100 (arbitrary amount) in play money. People are then ready to hit the tables. Once they sit at a table, they can exchange their fun money for $100 worth of chips. If a player manages to lose all of his money, he/she can reload on fun money once throughout the evening. If however it is a charity casino night and the goal is to raise money for a worthy cause, it is wise to allow a player unlimited reloads. (Each time a player reloads, will mean he will have to hand over real cash for some play money, which in turn swells the coffers of the designated charity)

6) Who is the casino night’s top gambler?

At 11pm, after over 3 hours around the tables, it is time to close the casino night, and count out the chips (the croupiers will always do this). Whoever has the most chips, wins. Try to always keep the actual duration of the casino night to a maximum of 4 hours. As exciting as a casino night is, people will inevitable get bored and begin to lose interest. Gambling at the tables can prove to be a very tiring experience, especially if one is losing. There is also the likelihood that people will have one beverage too many, and before long, drinks start to get spilled across the blackjack tables. Often, the best advice is to call a halt after 3 hours around the gaming tables.

Distribution and announcement of casino night prizes

This should be the highlight of any casino night and no matter what people say, coming first place in a casino night also bestows bragging rights. If it’s a big event, it adds to the occasion if the casino night venue has a PA system in place. What about the prizes? Popular casino night prizes include, holidays, flights, theatre tickets, cases of wine, lap tops, plasma TVs and IPods. But come the end of the night, the prize itself is rarely important. What people want are the bragging rights that come with being the casinos top gambler or punter. It is worth remembering that if a casino night is in aid of a charity, it is prudent to keep the prizes relatively insignificant. By all means keep the prizes attractive, but always keep in the back of your mind that the main goal of the casino night is to raise as much as possible for charity in question.

Once the casino night prizes have been allocated, it is normal for the casino night hire company to move the casino equipment from the venue. This is mainly to avoid any drinks being spilled on the often expensive casino tables.

Hopefully this article gives you a clearer picture of how a casino night works. You may want to check a previous article on how to keep a casino night within the confines of the law. Not yet sure about hosting a casino night? Then find out what typically happens at a corporate poker night.