Use a casino party to reward your employees
Employee Recognition 
Happy employees are vital to the long-term success of every company. Rewarding your employees when they reach a defined goal gives them purpose and shows that you value their work. The more time team members can spend with one another outside the workplace the more camaraderie and morale is enhanced. A unique and fun way to recognize employees is through throwing a casino-themed party. Casino parties are “funny/fake” money events where team members compete against each other in a relaxed atmosphere. At the end of the event team members can turn in their funny money and/or raffle tickets to win prizes. Think about it: Would an employee prefer to win a $25 gift card for competing against coworkers, or would s/he rather be given the gift card? After hosting over 500 events, I am confident that most employees would rather win the gift card. Below are three ways to use a casino-themed party as an employee recognition tool.
Have a poker tournament
Chris Moneymaker’s World Series Championship in 2003 started the Texas Holdem boom! It proved that anyone, on any day, could win the World Series of Poker main event. Poker tournaments are great for employee recognition. Everyone gets an entry into the tournament and typically plays for at least an hour. Once knocked out of the tournament, players rarely go home early. They tend to stick around and watch their co-workers fight it out to see the tournament champion. Prizes can be awarded based on the number of participants (1st, 2nd, & 3rd place) and also bounties can be placed on bosses or owners of the company. (A bounty simply means if you knock out someone with a bounty you get a special prize.) Who doesn’t want to beat the boss?
Workplace challenge events
Typically at a casino-themed party night players start off with $500 in funny money chips. In workplace challenge events, employees earn “bonus chips” by completing tasks at the workplace. Among other things, employees can be rewarded for: safety, attending presentations, making sales goals, completing extra tasks, and punctuality. Regardless of what the reward is, you can use the casino-themed party as a fun incentive to encourage your employees on the job. Remember to recognize these individuals for their workplace accomplishments at the casino-themed party event too.
Team Casino Night 
Do you want to know who the leaders are in your company? If so, do a team casino night with each team starting with $10k in “funny” money chips. Teams will need to select a captain and the captain will distribute the money to his/her team members. Players then will be free to move throughout the casino and play games to accumulate chips for their team. Team casino nights bring out interesting strategies on what games to play, how money is distributed, and when to stop playing because a team thinks it has accumulated enough chips to win.
Make your employee recognition strategy fun and something your employees will enjoy and look forward to. A happy employee is a successful employee!
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