Many of our clients use a program of game sponsorship to help pay for their casino night event.
Some of our clients have asked suppliers who they deal with on a regular basis to sponsor a game at their casino night event. Just as a reminder, a casino party can be used for any event.
Occasionally, a representative of the sponsoring supplier company is actually invited to attend the party as a guest. Often the representative will be invited to participate as a volunteer dealer. We do train this individual in our training session along with the other volunteer dealers provided by the client.
The majority of our clients receive help with cost of their casino night event. Many are able to completely pay for their evening through game sponsorship. Many times association members help by sponsoring individual games in the casino. Frequently vendors who do business with the association's membership will jump at the opportunity to gain valuable exposure via game sponsorship. These sponsors are usually given first the option of actually staffing their sponsored game as a volunteer dealer. We do provide the training for free.
At Mr. Tom Jackson's Ohio Grocers' Association casino night event, The Philip Morris Company picked up the entire tab. We even named our famous racetrack PHILIP MORRIS DOWNS. The Philip Morris Reps who were present that night were very pleased.
Progressive Insurance Agency paid a major portion of the Professional Insurance Agents' Association's casino night event at Stouffer's on the Square in Cleveland. The feedback Progressive received indicated that it was advertising money well spent.
All sponsors should be properly acknowledged during the casino night event. A small sign with the sponsors name is usually placed on each sponsored game. If flyers or brochures are printed, the sponsors should all be acknowledged in these items.
Practically all of our clients use game sponsorship to assure that their events are financial successes. Many of these groups are able to show a profit before their first admission ticket is sold.
While we have many successful clients, our biggest fund-raising success story is Bethesda Health Foundation of Zanesfield, Ohio. They came to us twenty-three years ago, in January of 1988, and told us that they wanted to stage a casino night fund-raiser the very next month. To be quite honest, we were still a bit skeptical that anyone could accomplish a financially successful casino night fund-raiser of the magnitude that they proposed with only 5 weeks lead time.
We could of course stage a great event for them in 5 weeks. One of our crews were available on their projected date. The big questions were: could they obtain adequate sponsorship and pre-sell enough admission tickets to make it work in dollars and cents?
They could...and they did. That first year they cleared over $8,000.
While we do not know how much money they have raised each year following that initial year, we do know that each year approximately 1,000 people attend the Bethesda Health Foundation Celebrity Casino at Colony Square Mall.