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Don't Gamble on Your Event |
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Written by Elite Events
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Ensure the odds are on your side with a fun casino
Entertainment options in China's major cities continue to grow and diversify at speed. For this reason, many organisations increasingly try to stage events that are ‘exciting' and a ‘break from the norm'. In such an environment, you do not want to fall behind. It is imperative that when you organise an event - whether it is an internal teambuilding event or an opportunity to entertain potential clients - you provide something that captures your guests' imagination and sets their pulses racing.
I imagine that as soon as you hear the word "casino" your mind drifts to the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas or, for a slightly closer option, to rapidly developing Macau. The idea of throwing a pile of chips down onto the roulette table or betting everything on the turn of one card will certainly get the adrenaline pumping. Unfortunately, as exciting as this may sound, organising a corporate event based on gambling certainly has its drawbacks. First, no one will remember your event with any fondness if he or she leaves having lost a week's salary. Secondly, as gambling casinos are illegal on the Chinese mainland, they are not a particularly practical option. However, there is one way to get the thrills and spills of a night in Las Vegas without the risk, and you can do it much closer to home.
Fun Casinos aim to maintain the thrills of a casino atmosphere by giving everyone the chance to win without losing real money - they aim purely to entertain. At a fun casino, none of the money used is real. Instead, players use what we at Elite like to call ‘fun money'. Just as in a real casino, players can exchange fun money for chips, which they can use to bet on the roulette table, blackjack or the wheel of fortune. However, these chips cannot be redeemed for real money. To keep things exciting though, players can exchange chips for prizes or use them in auctions at the end of the evening. It is also likely that for many of your guests a night at your fun casino will be something new and exciting.
"The greatest advantage of the fun casino is the opportunity it provides for guests to mix and mingle."
So, how could organising a fun casino help your event planning? The greatest advantage of the fun casino is the opportunity it provides for guests to mix and mingle. There are several types of games included in a typical event, such as roulette or blackjack. Each game takes place at tables big enough to accommodate 10 or more people. Over the course of the evening players will move around the room to play different games, and in so doing, will meet dozens of new people at each table. This can work fantastically well in building relationships and rapport, particularly if you are looking to meet several potential clients. However, it can also serve as a tremendously effective teambuilding event. Unlike other events with employees confined to groups and departments, with the fluid nature of a fun casino everyone interacts with everyone else.
As a teambuilding exercise a fun casino is ideal because it is a great leveler - the games do not depend on status or seniority, rather they depend upon skill and in some cases pure luck. Most casino games are easy to learn in just a few minutes. This means that everyone from security guard to CEO has the same chance of winning and, more importantly, can be equally involved with the event. The best example of this that I have seen came a few weeks ago at an event in Shanghai where an organisation's ayi was close to winning tickets to Hainan, but missed by just one card.
Roulette: Roulette is a game of chance. It involves a wheel with 37 or 38 spaces painted red and black around the edge. The croupier spins the wheel and throws on a small ball. Players can bet on where the ball lands, for example in which number or what colour space.
Blackjack: Blackjack is a popular card game. The idea of the game is to accumulate a score of 21 - or as close as possible, without going over - with at least two cards. Players bet on whose cards will be closes to 21.
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