In its fourth year of operation, The Gambling After Dark decimated its previous attendance record, now clocking in at 455 attendees this year.

Many improvements were implemented by the Gambling After Dark team to make this year’s event much larger than years past. One of the biggest changes they were able to make was their advertising campaign. An increase in funding led to more advertising seen around campus prior to the event.

“We also started pushing a lot of the departments that we work with to advertise,” said Justin Killgoar, member of the E-board for Gambling After Dark. The event also benefited from a more efficiently organized floor plan. The E-board took special care to make sure that the flow of the crowds were not too difficult to manage, with there being more tables to navigate.

“Mostly last year [the tables] were along the walls, and there was sort of a crowd blocking everything,” said Alex Drolette, a former attendee who was quite impressed with this year’s installment. “Now, with more of a circular motion…it just helped the flow of things.”

Even with the improved layout of the tables, some attractions still had long lines, due the enormously high attendance. Drollete said that the roulette tables were particularly packed, and it took some effort to finally be at a table.

“You had to sort of identify the zone and get in there,” said Drolette.

Another popular attraction this year was the horseracing station. This year, the horses were animated, done on a program created by Brandon Rogers, who set up the station. “I was very impressed with the horse racing,” said Drolette. “Brandon Rogers really stepped up with an animation. The horses are kind of just going across the line, [and] it looks like he put a lot of effort into it and it was quite impressive.”

While the event was a huge success, the team for Gambling After Dark still want to make improvements to the event. One big thing on their to-do list is to create a permanent floor plan that they can reference for future years.

“Every year we essentially look [at] what we had last year, and we build off of it, but we’ve never had anything firm that we use every year that we keep coming back to,” said Killgoar. “So, we’re going to work between now and next year’s event to establish our advertisement, etc. We’re going to essentially use something we can always go back to instead of recreating the event every year.”

Overall, the E-board for the event was very pleased with the turnout this year. “To be able to get such a huge attendance this year,” said Killgoar, “it’s a very satisfying feeling. We’re all ecstatic about what happened this year, and we’re going to keep going with this and hope that future years go even better.”