Casino Night Philanthropy
 

Just wondering if anyone has attempted this before. I know in Illinois that "casino nights" for charity aren't illegal if you do it this way:

Sell tickets for a certain amount, say $20. Every person that buys a ticket gets a set amount of chips at the beginning of the night. Wherever you decide to host this (ours, for example, would be at my frat house), there are different casino games in different parts of the house (poker, blackjack, roulette, craps, etc). Whoever has the most chips at the end of the night wins prizes. Because it's a philanthropy for charity, you should have no problem getting local businesses to sponsor or donate prizes. You might even want to team up with a fraternity/sorority and have the guys be the "security" and dealers, and have the girls be waitresses (make some extra money off of that, too). Depending on what kind of prizes you get, you could potentially get a lot of people to come out and buy a ticket.

There are lots of companies that rent out the equipment (tables, chips, etc) so it wouldn't be too expensive... anyways, just wondering if anyone's tried or seen anything like this because we're talking about doing one right now...

A lot depends on State Laws.

One of the fraternities did this on my campus for a rush event. They only used fake money and did give prizes at the end for whoever had the most money. It was a big success and it was everyone's favorite night of rush. I can see how it could easily transfer to a philanthropy event by selling tickets for entry...

ETA: The dress code was suits for men and Formal attire for ladies (at our school each fraternity has rush hostesses)