What you need to know before Casino Night 2016

This Thursday, April 7th at 6pm, is Casino Night 2016. In case any of you are freshmen or transfer students, the Association of Women in Computing Casino Night is an annual fundraiser to support women in technology. This is an event where for $5 for students ($10 at the door) you get a night of delicious food, fake gambling with your professors, and very real prizes. Your ticket gives you $500 in funny money that you can use at blackjack, craps, and more, which you can turn in at the end of the night for raffles. This year is bigger and better than ever, and while this post can’t give you everything you might need before Thursday, I’ll tackle the logistics so you can take the rest in stride.

I’m a very skillful photographer.

First thing first -- where is this thing? Due to the popularity of the event, Casino Night 2016 will be hosted in the College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference Center on Campus Drive. It’s down the road from the Domain College Park Apartments and next to Lot 3. Now, you may not know exactly where that is, so let me help you out a little -- you can get there by taking the 125 Circulator.  Stop 3 after leaving from Stamp is marked as the College Park Marriott.  A little warning from someone who found it already, it’s a tiny bit of a walk and the entrance to the Marriott isn’t totally visible from the stop. If you look at the picture below, you have a view of the stop you want to get off at.  The building on the right (behind the cars) is the College Park Marriott.

This is the stop I’m talking about. See the building on the right behind the cars? That’s where you want to go!

You can get to this stop using the 113 Hyattsville, 111 Silver Spring, 108 Adelphi, and 110 Seven Springs buses as well. If you have a car/a friend whose car you can climb into, you can park in Lot 3 right next to it, which is free after 4pm that Thursday.  With the event starting at 6pm, you have plenty of time to get there and park for free.

Obviously your next big question will be about what to wear. This year’s theme is Red Carpet. Typically, this means formal and elegant clothing -- long dresses and tailored suits -- but can also mean more avant garde fashions like Sia’s wig that hangs over her eyes or an all denim throwback to the early 2000s. Fashion can be strange, so why not embrace it? I mean you can, of course, also come in your Bitcamp shirt and a pair of jeans -- the height of Computer Science fashion.

This is from 2011 -- back when Bieber was tolerated better. Gosh that pink dress!

Casino Night is 3 hours long, so wear something comfortable if you want to stay the full time. Keep in mind that the forecast for this week isn't too warm, and it might even rain on Thursday. Will I still probably be wearing a dress and heels? Oh heck yeah, I don't plan around the weather! But if you do, then keep the forecast in mind.  Whatever you end up wearing, make sure there is a place for you to bring the ultimate trio -- phone, keys, wallet. And make sure your student ID is tucked in there if you bought tickets ahead of time.

Last but certainly not least -- what kind of cool stuff can you win at Casino Night 2016? Well, you see that cute robot? Some lucky event goer is going to get to bring home an adorable BB-8. You can also enter to win a Chromebook, some Terp apparel, swag bags from Palantir, an Xbox, a GoPro, giftcards, and a Samsung Galaxy Tablet! The prizes this year are even better than last year, which I didn't even think was possible!

If any of this sounds exciting and you haven't yet bought a ticket for Casino Night 2016, you can buy them online here. If you were already interested but just weren't sure about where it is or what to wear, hopefully this helped! See you Thursday.