The Student Recreation Center will hold a casino-themed Late Night at the Rec. called Vandal Vegas from 9-11:30 p.m. Friday. The event is free to attend, and will include blackjack, Texas hold ‘em, Pai Gow poker, horse races, a photo booth, stand-up comedy, prizes, food and mocktails.
Gambling will be done with chips provided by the SRC staff. Students will turn in their chips for tickets to submit in a raffle. Without winning at the card tables in the Multi-Activity Court (MAC), students may earn up to 13 raffle tickets based off participation in various events throughout the night.
Prizes from the raffle include an iPad 2, Xbox One, Vandal gear, Blu-Ray player and local gift cards. The prize drawings will be at 11:30 p.m. and students must be present to win.
The card games will be located in the MAC. Members of the Sigma Nu fraternity and Campus Recreation will be dealing at the tables.
“We’re going to have seven blackjack tables, seven poker tables, one female only table, two educational tables and two Pai Gow tables,” said Tyler Roberds, graduate assistant of intramurals.
The event is in coordination with Alcohol Awareness Week, said Shannon Haselhuhn, health education coordinator.
“Because that week is Alcohol Awareness Week, we are having a late night event that is really geared to be open to all students,” Haselhuhn said.
Vandal Vegas will feature four separate mock-alcohol drinks. The Vandaltini has apple, orange-pineapple and cranberry juice on the rocks.
The Golden Punch is a combination of orange juice, ginger ale and pineapple juice. The Juice Joe features cranberry and orange juice, a squeeze of lemon and ginger ale, and the Pucker Face has equal parts ginger ale and grapefruit juice.
The stand-up comedy — provided by a student group called the Comedy Lab — will be in the outdoor programs seating area from 9:45-10:45 p.m.
For the horse races, student living groups will take the role of horses and physically run around the track upstairs in the SRC. Four horse races will take place at 9:30, 10, 10:30 and 11 p.m. Bets will be placed on each race.
Due to space constraints, there will be GoPro cameras placed at the corners of the track to transmit the races onto the televisions around the SRC so that everyone can watch the races, said Butch Fealy, director of intramural sports.
Fealy said bets up to five chips will be allowed on the horse races with two to one odds.
Mocktinis and food such as sub sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres and ice cream will be provided in the atrium of the SRC.
Roberds said he estimates more than 150 students will attend. Roberds helped with a prior Vegas-themed event, which was a smaller, student-based project through ASUI in the spring semester of 2011.
“Hopefully this will give students something fun to do on a Friday night,” Haselhuhn said.
Jake Smith
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