Over the past few years, several providers have thought they’ve got what it takes to run a fun casino business. They’ve gone online, ordered a few tables, some chips and some cards, set up a website and figured they’re in business.

Good quality casino tables are hard to come by though – genuine casino tables that have been used in actual casinos (the ones we use) are even harder to find. On the other hand, anyone can import a few cheap casino tables and run a hobby business out of their garage…

How do you identify cheap casino tables?

There’s a few giveaways:

- Often imitation cheap casino tables will have folding metal legs, rather than sturdy wooden ones. It probably wouldn’t end well to put your drink on one and then lean on it!
- Those trestle legs don’t look very pretty, so some of the companies that use these tables will try to hide the legs with a curtain. Don’t be fooled!
- Cheap casino tables are rarely full size. A genuine roulette table, for example, is about three metres long. If it can be delivered in a station wagon, it’s a giveaway that it’s not a real roulette table!
- Sometimes these tables will be missing important accessories, such as padded arm rests. And we’re yet to see one that has a foot rest for the players’ comfort!

In fact having seen some of the cheap casino tables that our competitors use, we reckon the covers we put on our tables probably cost more than their whole tables!

Here’s a few examples of tables other companies have used at fun casino events in the past. You can find a lot more at our Rogue’s Gallery:

How cheap casino tables affect your event

It’s true that you only get one chance to make a first impression. When your guests first walk into your event, the tables they see will play a huge part in setting the mood for the night. Quite simply, genuine tables bring a sense of class, elegance and style that cheap tables struggle to match.

If a company uses imitation cheap casino tables that aren’t full size, it also creates another issue: less people can fit around a smaller table. With less people fitting on the table, you end up needing more of them to cater for all your guests. So if you’re being charged $400 per table, but you’re being told you need at least four tables to entertain a group of 40 people, then you’re still paying too much.

In fact, there’s another way to look at the “low” prices these companies charge. If you can go online and buy pretty much the same table (sometimes even exactly the same table), brand new and to keep, for less than they’re charging you to hire it for one night, well… suddenly their prices don’t start to look so low after all, do they?

Where else are they cutting corners?

If a company is using cheap casino tables then it also begs another question: where else are they cutting corners?

Often they’ll match a cheap casino table with similarly cheap equipment. Genuine roulette wheels, for example, are both expensive to buy and heavy to carry around, so some companies choose to use miniature “toy” roulette wheels. Blackjack Knights isn’t afraid to make an investment and do a bit of heavy lifting though, so we only use the real deal.

Some will rope in a few mates to deal the games rather than using staff with actual casino experience – a company that describes its staff as “trained in house” is usually trying to hide this. Blackjack Knights staff have that real casino experience, and on top of that, we only choose dealers who are great entertainers.  We pay a premium for our staff in order to secure that experience and expertise for your events.  So if an imitator is charging a lot less than us, you should probably ask yourself what they’re paying their staff, and what kind of service they’re likely to give you.

Others will sell you a three hour event, but only turn up to deliver the tables right before the three hours start, setting up the tables in full view of your guests after the party has already started. Blackjack Knights sets up before your guests arrive, and includes a free hour of wait time between party start and casino start as well.

In fact, in April 2013 we got the following feedback about one provider (who we won’t name) in Victoria:

“The company we hired last year were hopeless, in the fact that they turned up about 2 hours late and then gave us minimal discount.”

Maintenance is another area where companies sometimes cut corners to save a few bucks. Again, our Rogue’s Gallery has more than a few examples of providers that have tried to get away with this. Blackjack Knights not only uses better quality tables to start with, but we also invest heavily in keeping our tables in tip-top shape.

In summary…

We think the “Common Law of Business Balance” (often attributed to John Ruskin, though they may or may not actually be his words) sums the situation up best:

“There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot — it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

Most people only get one chance to have a fun casino party. So if you’re looking to have one, take our advice – don’t gamble on companies that use cheap casino tables!

Cheap casino tables – don’t gamble on them! is a post from: Casino Nights

What we came up with was the fun casino tournament. It’s the format that we still use to this day (and that a few of our competitors have “borrowed” from us). The beauty of it is everyone gets to play all the games, multiple times, and nobody ever goes broke!

Punters enjoying a Blackjack Knights fun casino tournament

How a fun casino tournament works:

Everyone gets a $2000 fun money note when they arrive at the casino party. When they’re ready to play, guests take that note to one of the friendly croupiers at the tables. The croupier will give them $2000 in casino chips and their $2000 note back.

Each game goes for seven hands (blackjack and poker) or seven spins (roulette, big wheel) . The players have that long to make as much as they can with their starting $2000. At the end of the game the croupier takes back everyone’s chips and makes a note of the players with the biggest scores.

All the players are then free to use their $2000 note again to get more chips, play more games and try to beat their previous score. With each game only going for 10-15 minutes, everyone gets a chance to play all the games multiple times. Players who go on a huge winning streak don’t end up monopolising the tables. And if someone does “go broke” it’s only temporary – they’ll be back in next game!

Throughout the event the croupiers and casino manager will keep track of the biggest winners on a leaderboard. At the end of the party, the seven biggest winners from all the tables play off in a grand final. The winner of the grand final is presented with a trophy, and of course, gets huge bragging rights!

Fun casino tournaments – great for organisers too!

These are some of the reasons a fun casino tournament is great entertainment for your guests. There’s also another reason why a tournament format is great for you as an organiser. With relatively short games and frequent player turnover, you can entertain a larger crowd with fewer tables than you could with an ordinary “free for all” casino where players are allowed to play for as long as they want to.

That’s why we see a Blackjack Knights fun casino tournament as a win-win situation: your guests have more fun, nobody ever goes broke, and you can spend less while getting a better outcome!

Fun casino tournaments – best bang for your entertainment buck is a post from: Casino Nights

Occasionally we get asked if we’re able to run a casino fundraiser for real money, with the organisers putting up the funds for the house.  It’s actually legal for certain charities and not-for-profits to do this in some states, provided they apply for (and are granted) a licence and meet various other conditions.

Even when the organisers can get a licence, however, we still recommend against having a real money casino fundraiser.  Why?  It’s all about one word: risk.

Most people will be familiar with the casino saying “the house always wins” – chances are it’s why they’d want to run a real-money fundraiser in the first place!  And while the saying is almost always proven true in regular casinos, it doesn’t necessarily give the full picture for a fundraiser

It’s much more accurate to say “the house always wins in the end” or “in the long run”.  In the short term, especially if you consider a small number of tables for just a few hours, it’s very possible for the house to lose.

Big casinos offset this risk by having hundreds of tables that they run around the clock.  The money they lose on some tables is typically made up for by the amount they win on the others.

Casino fundraiser events don’t have that luxury though, as they only run for a few hours with relatively few tables.  In that environment, just one or two big winners on one of the tables could result in the entire casino making a loss for the night.

That’s why at Blackjack Knights we strongly recommend you don’t run a casino fundraiser for real money, even in situations where it’s legal to do so.  You’re much better off treating the casino tables as entertainment and charging your guests for admission on that basis.

Remember that you can always run live or silent auctions alongside the casino tables to raise additional funds on the night, or ask guests for real money donations to receive additional casino fun money.  That way, your house really will always win!

Fun casino fundraisers: a better bet than real money is a post from: Casino Nights

As part of our day-to-day job of working with event organisers from around the country, we often get asked questions about the best ways to run a fun casino night.  We’ve taken the opportunity to answer a few of those common questions in this blog.

One question we’re often asked is “how soon after the event starts should we open the tables?”

The answer to this one can vary a little depending on the specifics of the event.  But what doesn’t change is that at all Blackjack Knights fun casino events, we include up to an hour’s wait time (or more, by special arrangement) between when guests arrive for the party and when we open the tables up for gaming.

For almost all clients, we strongly recommend taking advantage of that wait time.  Doing so gives latecomers a chance to arrive, while everyone else gets to have their first drink and relax.  Then everyone can start gaming on the casino tables at the same time, and you get the most entertainment bang for your buck!

Something else we’re often asked about is combining the casino tables with other entertainment, such as live bands or DJs.

Again, there can be a certain element of ‘horses for courses’ when it comes to this question.  But wherever possible, we recommend that there’s a bit of separation between the casino hire tables and any loud music.  This can be achieved by either putting the tables in a different room to the dance floor, or scheduling the music and dancing to start after the fun casino finishes.

We recommend doing this because the interaction between our expert croupiers and your guests is a big part of what makes a casino night successful, and it’s hard for them to interact when they can’t hear each other!  There’s also a question of value for money: if you’re paying a DJ for three hours but most people are playing on the tables, you might get better value just from playing background music on an iPod or only paying for a DJ after the tables close.

Those are just a couple of issues that we’re asked about on a regular basis – if you have an upcoming event that you’d like to discuss any aspect of, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Organising a fun casino night – common questions is a post from: Casino Nights

A question we often get asked is “Can you run a casino night for us in a regional location?”

We’re glad to report that, in most cases, the answer is “Yes, we can!”  For example, in the past few weeks in Victoria alone we ran several events outside of the CBD and inner-suburban areas.  One of them was at Wild Cattle Creek Estate winery in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, a beautiful setting for an evening of fun and gaming!

We regularly travel to Lorne, Geelong, the Mornington Peninsula, Ballarat and Bendigo.  In the coming weeks we’re due to visit Albury and Nhill – and that’s just events in Victoria!
We’ve kept the same “Yes, we can” attitude that we’ve had for years as the company has expanded into Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.

Our ever-dedicated casino dealers (who we discussed in the previous Blackjack Knights blog) obviously play a huge role in us being able to offer this service – it never ceases to amaze us how far they’re willing to go to give people a great event.  Indeed, there’s often competition among staff as to who gets to work regional casino nights!

Unfortunately there do have to be some practical limits.  We were unable to cater for a recent event in Cairns, for example (though if your event has enough room in the budget, we can always put the staff and equipment on a plane!)

But if you’re considering running an event in a regional location in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia or Queensland, particularly if you’re within three hours of a capital city please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us and request a quote.  Chances are we’ll be able to give you the same “yes we can” response that we’ve been able to give to our other happy regional customers!

Regional events – yes we can! is a post from: Casino Nights

Midyear is quite a busy time for us, with a lot of end of financial year functions on top of birthdays, conferences and various other events – outside of December it’s one of our most hectic periods, and it’s at times like this that we’re especially thankful for our fantastic casino dealers.

Our staff have a lot of things in common. For the most part they’ve moved on from working in the real money casinos and cruise ships where they learned their craft, but they’ve still got all their skills at the tables, and they want to use them.

It’s about more than just handling chips and cards though. They’re also very passionate about creating a fun, inclusive atmosphere at the tables and going the extra mile (often literally – we sometimes ask them to travel some pretty long distances!) to make sure every event they work at is a success.

We’re proud to say that’s an area they excel in. Time after time when we’ve spoken to people after an event, they’ve told us how wonderful the casino dealers were, how they had everyone laughing, participating and having a great time.

That’s not something that just anyone fresh off the casino floor can do: it’s a skill that our dealers have practiced and refined over time, and it’s something that really helps to make the night special for our clients.

So thank you to all our casino dealers, in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, for all their hard work and dedication!

Dedicated, friendly and experienced casino dealers is a post from: Casino Nights

Last week I spoke with a woman looking to organise a party for her husband’s birthday. She’d never been to a fun casino night before and, like a lot of people who approach us, she didn’t really know what they were all about.
So I told her about what we do and how a casino night runs: how we provide genuine ex-casino tables along with fully trained, experienced croupiers, set up in her venue of choice to give her husband and their guests the feel and excitement of a real casino without the risk of losing any real money.
We also discussed how one of the best things about fun casino parties is their broad appeal with people of all ages and backgrounds.
For us, that’s a huge thing. We’ve run over 2,000 of these events and they’ve come in all shapes and sizes – from huge black-tie corporate functions in the most expensive hotels to small birthday parties in people’s homes. The setting might change, but what doesn’t change at a casino night is the reaction from the guests: wherever we go, people invariably tell us after the event that they had loads of fun!
There are a few important factors that we think contribute to having a fun, successful casino night. One of the biggest ones is having the right people run the event for you. We only use experienced croupiers who have all the casino skills to wow your guests, but it doesn’t end there – we also only pick staff who are great teachers and entertainers! So it doesn’t matter if your guests haven’t played blackjack, roulette, poker or even craps before (and we’re always surprised by the number of people that haven’t!), a good casino night croupier can show them how to play and have them enjoying themselves in no time flat.
Of course, it also helps that your guests won’t be risking any real money at the tables. Since all the play at the tables is done with fun money, nobody loses and there are only winners at the end of the night.
On top of that, our event managers take it upon themselves to make life as easy as possible for you, the organiser, so that you actually get a chance to enjoy your own party! They take care of the details so you don’t have to.
Which brings me back to what I told the woman looking into her husband’s party: after we’d discussed how everything works and what we could do for the party, she was amazed at the concept and was looking forward to making a booking with us.

What is a fun casino night? is a post from: Casino Nights

When planning corporate entertainment, there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. What is the age range of those attending? Are they mostly male, or female or a mix of both? What are their likes and dislikes? It is little wonder that selecting and organising the perfect corporate entertainment has often been so difficult for many organisers.

A fun casino party is a fresh and unique way to meet all your corporate entertainment needs. Hiring a fun casino – complete with blackjack, poker, roulette and craps – is the ideal way to ensure that all of your guests, no matter who they are, have a fantastic time. Casino corporate entertainment is the best way to ensure maximum fun and involvement, regardless of age or gender. A fun casino will appeal to both men and women, from ages 18 to 80 with its universally known games such as blackjack, roulette and poker.

As far as corporate entertainment goes, organisers would find it difficult to find an activity as generically appealing as a fun casino. In addition to the casino tables, professional croupiers or dealers would assist in engaging the guests and ensuring maximum interaction amongst the conference attendees. At the very least, they would be on hand to provide some expertise in explaining the rules for any newcomers to the casino games. Casino dealers also help to run tournament style play by fostering some healthy competition amongst the guests. Many corporate fun casinos take it a step further by preparing and distributing ‘fun money’ which has been customised with the company logo or the CEO’s or manager’s image. A trophy customised with an inscription can also be up for grabs. What better way to promote some real competition with this ultimate prize and ‘bragging rights’ to be won?

Quite simply, a fun casino is the perfect solution to any corporate entertainment needs and is guaranteed to appeal to a broad demographic.

Corporate entertainment is a post from: Casino Nights

If you’re looking for something different for your guests, then you can’t go past organising roulette wheel hire. Roulette is a great game for any occasion and is easy to play and simple for all your guests to understand. Best of all, roulette wheel hire is easy to do if you’re dealing with a professional company.

Roulette wheel hire is an exciting, dynamic and unique way to entertain all of your party guests, regardless of whether they are boys or girls, men or women, 18 or 80. Hiring a roulette wheel – complete with all accessories – is the ideal way to ensure that all of your party guests, no matter who they are, have a fantastic time. Roulette wheel entertainment is the best way to ensure maximum fun and involvement, regardless of age or gender. It will provide hours of entertainment for all of your guests, no matter who they are. After all, who doesn’t enjoy a spin of the roulette wheel?

Whilst there may be a plethora of entertainment options out there, there are really not that many that can and do appeal to a wide range of preferences. For instant excitement and drama, not much can beat the thrill of roulette wheel hire – it’s guaranteed satisfaction. And the best part? When you hire a roulette wheel, it is all done for you – the set up and packing up of the equipment, highly skilled and trained roulette wheel croupier, casino quality table and all accessories – the lot. All you provide is the venue and refreshments, and leave the entertainment to the professionals.

When you organise roulette wheel hire you will be assured of entertainment that will be enjoyed by all of your guests.

Roulette Wheel Hire is a post from: Casino Nights