Casino Nite

The 19th Annual Casino Nite was held Saturday, September 29, 2012. This fun-filled evening took place immediately following the afternoon NAU football game.

This event is held on Family Weekend every year and beyond being the important scholarship fund raiser that it is, it is a hands-on event planning experience for the Casino Gaming Management course.

The benefits of this night extend beyond the evening’s fun. The event is arranged and managed by students of the Casino Gaming Management classes. Students actively apply what they have learned in class—and they love this hands-on challenge. They developed the marketing and promotion plan and, at the event, they dealt blackjack, craps, roulette, bingo, and poker. They served as pit-bosses, cashiers, and supervisors for raffle and auction departments. They developed human resources guidelines and trained over 160 student staff members.  They ballyhoo’d the prizes, and managed the food and beverage sales and service. Through their efforts, we earned substantial scholarship revenues—and had a great time doing it! Needless to say, Saturday, September 29, 2012 proved a lucky day for all involved.

If you joined us, we hope you had as much fun as we did making the evening happen. We thank you for your interest, past support, and hopefully your future participation.

Casino Nite 2011 in Review

The 18th Annual Casino Nite was held September 24, 2011. With such a short time since the semester's start, the students had to hit the ground running. It was an amazing evening with a wonderful turnout, certainly given the short window for marketing and planning the event!

This evening ran from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., immediately following the afternoon NAU football game. Dinner was served from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The event's success by the numbers:
We raised $40,000.
We hosted about 1,200 Mom’s and Dad’s; we served dinners to about 1,000 Mom’s and Dad’s as well as all the student volunteers.
Our staff that night totaled over 150 persons to make this a fun-flilled evening to remember.

Our snapshot in video from the 18th Annual Casino Nite:

Casino Nite 2010 in Review

Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM) students from HA477 (Casino Gaming Management) rolled out a gourmet Italian Street Festival-themed dinner with flair as part of the 17th Annual Family Weekend Casino Nite and Dinner. Almost 1,400 guests attended this scholarship fund raising event. The 80 students in class, along with another roughly 80 volunteers, hosted parents and families during this popular NAU Family Weekend event.

Under the direction of Professor Gary Vallen, HA 477 students came together at du Bois Conference Center to design and decorate a full-service casino. Students managed all aspects of the evening, serving in positions which included pit bosses, dealers (Blackjack, Roulette, Craps, Texas Hold-Em, Pai Gow, Let-It-Ride, Bingo, and more), dining room managers, hosts, auctioneers, raffle sales, human resources managers, and logistics managers (set-up and tear-down). Over 100 prizes were sold in the Silent Auction.

According to comments heard around du Bois, this was the best year to-date. Parents loved the cuisine, all employees were well-trained in their assorted duties, and the evening was flawless. The evening proved to be the third-most populated event on campus during Family Weekend, beaten only by the NAU Football Game and Tailgate BBQ.