Charity Casino Night!

I've always loved to throw a good party. Bringing friends together, making good drinks, and putting together fun games became a habit from organizing many Tau Beta Pi retreats. But my ambitions slowly grew into what became the highest effort party I've thrown yet.

I threw what I thought was a fantastic night of fun and donations where 37 people in total raised $23,000 for victims in Gaza and other causes. I spent 40 hours iterating and brewing cocktails, drafted a 7 page planning document, and spent hours ironing tablecloths to realize the idea I had for an exciting and impactful night.

Live leaderboard:

One of my primary goals for the party was inclusion. I specifically organized the event to be inclusive to both male and female egos, those who drink alcohol and those who don't, and those with more and less flexible budgets.

My understanding of the male ego is the drive to demonstrate dominance in a developed skill. A primary exhibit is physical sports, but also includes games e.g. poker, chess, video games etc. To appease the male ego is to validate the effort in skills built over years and reinforcing a specific kind of culture. I personally dislike this rigid and highly competitive style of interaction. To appeal to a broader audience, I showcased a leaderboard where success from both games of skill and games of pure luck equally were showcased. As a result, my sister excitedly took pictures of herself winning in craps on the leaderboard. But casino game equity was only one of three dimensions I designed for this party.

This party was the first that I've put dedicated preplanning into both cocktails and mocktails. I've always known mocktails are more difficult in technique than alcoholic cocktails. People have a lower flavor expectation when alcohol is included; to the degree where tasting like nothing is a major complement. However, mocktails are compared to fruit juices while simultaneously expected to be better and different. In my past 10 years of mixing cocktails, I've learned three ways of adding depth to mocktails are fruit infusions, bitter tinctures, and dealcoholized wines which all add unexpected flavor. For this night, I specifically created two pre-made cocktails that were more creative and difficult than anything I had made before, but my mocktail recipe needed to be improvised. I find that people have drastically different flavor rifles for what they want in a mocktail, and the only way to give everyone what they want is to make it up on the spot. I'll share more on my cocktail process in a separate post on 24hlimes.com later, but for now I'll keep focusing on the party.

The last major design pillar was to ensure all my friends that had more or less financial freedom felt welcome and equal. The last thing I wanted for this night was someone to see that they had an advantage by donating a significantly larger amount of money than others, and then they were able to flex that the entire night. However, I still wanted to have a minor incentive to donate more for the cause. As a result I decided on everyone receiving an equal amount of play money but with a dual raffle system. Specifically, every $100 donated resulted in one raffle ticket to a dive vacation worth $1000, but everyone also gets a single raffle ticket for a book. The result of these rules was that nobody was able to show off that they had more disposable money, while also mildly privately showing an appreciation to larger donations. I think this combo was very successful where we were able to raise a significant amount of money while also ensuring a fun night for everyone.

All in all, I think I organized a great time for all my friends. I shared in my speech that I've always tried to throw an event that a younger, more awkward Mark would have enjoyed, and I think I succeeded in that goal. I really do enjoy throwing these types of events, and I look forward to seeing you at the next one!