More than 100 students brought their best poker faces to Council Hall Feb. 6 for Fantasy Casino Night.
The event, sponsored by Campus Activities, hosted numerous casino mainstays, such as blackjack, roulette, and poker.
This was the second time a Casino Night event has been held this school year. Campus Activities sponsored a previous event last fall during Homecoming Week.
“It was a great night, there was a big turnout and the students all seemed to enjoy themselves,” said Noebeth Toro, coordinator of Campus Activities. “We’ve been trying to improve the weekend culture here on campus to give students more fun activities to do over the weekend and Fantasy Casino Night was one of those activities.”
Participants started with $50,000 in chips, which increased or decreased based on a player’s performance in the games.
The chips could then be exchanged for raffle tickets with one ticket earned for every $10,000 in chips.
At the end of the night, students submitted raffles to enter drawings to win a variety of prizes including an Xbox 360, Sony digital camera, two Broadway tickets for Avenue Q and other giveaways.
“We know students have different interests, so we made sure to offer a wide selection of prizes so that there would be something for everyone,” said Toro.
Lady Luck seemed to be smiling on some students at the event.
Andrew Bartley said he made most of his winnings from playing roulette, despite never playing the game before, and was able to win a Fender acoustic guitar for his efforts.
“In my case, I guess luck is much more important than skills,” said Bartley.
Other students said they enjoyed having a roll of the dice, at least for one night.
“It was fun,” said student Keshia Jones. “They should have more Casino Nights to bring in more people around campus.”
Toro mentioned although the nature of the event was festive, she felt it was still important to warn students of the dangers of gambling.
“We wanted to emphasize that this was all for fun, so we handed out pamphlets about gambling addiction for students,” she said.
