1 00:00:07,864 --> 00:00:11,136 People usually know what they're in for when they head into a casino. 2 00:00:11,257 --> 00:00:13,839 It's hard not to get caught up in it. 3 00:00:14,260 --> 00:00:15,881 It's the noise that gets you. 4 00:00:15,881 --> 00:00:19,363 The buzz, the thrill of winning big. 5 00:00:19,364 --> 00:00:22,527 It's a night of spending and throwing caution to the wind. 6 00:00:22,527 --> 00:00:25,388 That's what casinos mean to most people. 7 00:00:25,509 --> 00:00:29,012 But here in Alberta, the rules of the game are slightly different. 8 00:00:29,012 --> 00:00:33,156 For charitable groups in the province, casinos are a lifeline. 9 00:00:33,156 --> 00:00:36,038 They're capable of keeping them afloat. 10 00:00:37,378 --> 00:00:39,440 This is Raising the Stakes. 11 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:46,507 It's a podcast about the role casino advisors play in helping charities pull off the perfect casino fundraiser event. 12 00:00:46,507 --> 00:00:52,852 Because a charity's ability to help their communities might depend on just making it to the tables. 13 00:00:52,933 --> 00:00:54,855 There's a long road to get there. 14 00:00:54,855 --> 00:00:58,998 And when it comes to casino events, there's no room for error. 15 00:01:01,198 --> 00:01:09,062 For those involved in not-for-profits like educational musical theatre and community spaces, Singing, dancing, we use a lot of puppets. 16 00:01:09,062 --> 00:01:15,066 Crime prevention awareness, We just try to help people figure out how to protect their property and themselves. 17 00:01:15,066 --> 00:01:16,706 Or even animal shelters. 18 00:01:16,706 --> 00:01:23,630 We do have a good number of boxes of kittens that are literally just left on our doorstep from time to time. 19 00:01:23,630 --> 00:01:25,631 Funding doesn't come easy. 20 00:01:25,631 --> 00:01:31,424 Casinos are just one avenue they can turn to, but it's effective and sometimes necessary. 21 00:01:31,470 --> 00:01:33,770 Wait till you hear what the take is. 22 00:01:33,770 --> 00:01:40,050 In the major casinos, which is most of them, the charity gets half the profits. 23 00:01:40,050 --> 00:01:45,300 Meet Jeffrey Dawson, owner and operator of Alberta Casino Advisors, Incorporated. 24 00:01:45,300 --> 00:01:49,210 For charities in Alberta, it's very successful. 25 00:01:49,210 --> 00:01:54,770 In Edmonton, for example, the charities over a two-day period make about $80,000. 26 00:01:54,770 --> 00:01:57,480 In Calgary, it's about $75,000. 27 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:03,354 In Red Deer and other smaller cities, it's between 20 and 30 thousand paint on the city. 28 00:02:03,354 --> 00:02:09,897 Jeff is a dual casino advisor who has experience in every casino in the province. 29 00:02:10,038 --> 00:02:18,062 Not only does he help charities get a license for a casino event, he's there to follow through, showing them every step of the way. 30 00:02:18,083 --> 00:02:22,125 There's a lot that needs to be done right up until the big event. 31 00:02:22,125 --> 00:02:23,986 A ton of moving parts. 32 00:02:24,046 --> 00:02:30,906 Charities need a casino advisor to steer them in the right direction and prepare them for whatever might go wrong. 33 00:02:30,926 --> 00:02:33,746 It's too important for them to leave it to chance. 34 00:02:33,746 --> 00:02:37,136 I went in and said, no, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine, fine, we're fine, we're fine. 35 00:02:37,136 --> 00:02:39,386 No, that was big mistake on Mark's part. 36 00:02:39,386 --> 00:02:44,766 Mark should have just assumed that Murphy's Law is gonna kick in and get ready for it. 37 00:02:45,326 --> 00:02:48,006 He's been a casino advisor for many years. 38 00:02:48,006 --> 00:02:51,206 I've been a casino advisor since 2011. 39 00:02:51,206 --> 00:02:54,186 The term casino advisor is kind of misleading. 40 00:02:54,186 --> 00:02:55,946 I do not advise casinos. 41 00:02:55,946 --> 00:03:01,486 Every casino in Alberta requires to have volunteers in order to operate. 42 00:03:01,486 --> 00:03:12,332 And so what a casino advisor does is they train volunteers in the casino and the volunteers, the charity that is assigned to the casino changes every two days. 43 00:03:12,332 --> 00:03:17,004 Every two days I get a new group that I work with and I work in different casinos across the province. 44 00:03:17,004 --> 00:03:27,308 Years ago, the Alberta government decided that when they approved casinos in Alberta, that charities would be benefactors of the casinos. 45 00:03:27,308 --> 00:03:30,169 It's a charitable gaming model is what it's called. 46 00:03:30,169 --> 00:03:33,931 The charity holds the license for that casino to open that day. 47 00:03:33,931 --> 00:03:39,853 Actually, if a charity doesn't show up at a casino on their assigned day, the casino is actually not allowed to open. 48 00:03:39,853 --> 00:03:42,174 Talk about a costly mistake. 49 00:03:42,638 --> 00:03:44,679 Jeff knows the rules inside and out. 50 00:03:44,679 --> 00:03:47,320 When they change and they change often, he's on it. 51 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:49,280 The devil's in the details, as they say. 52 00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:53,642 Sometimes charities don't know that there are certain positions that need to be filled. 53 00:03:53,642 --> 00:03:55,723 The stakes couldn't be higher. 54 00:03:55,723 --> 00:03:56,873 My name is Sean Fraser. 55 00:03:56,873 --> 00:04:00,314 I'm the executive director of Evergreen Theatre Society. 56 00:04:00,314 --> 00:04:04,906 So we have two sides of our operation, all operating under sort of one society. 57 00:04:04,906 --> 00:04:05,900 So one is 58 00:04:05,900 --> 00:04:08,312 the Evergreen Theatre programming side. 59 00:04:08,312 --> 00:04:17,468 And so what we do is we do curriculum linked science and environmental education within schools and in public education settings. 60 00:04:17,468 --> 00:04:19,879 But we also do public performances and that sort of thing. 61 00:04:19,879 --> 00:04:23,752 So singing, dancing, we use a lot of puppets. 62 00:04:23,752 --> 00:04:30,188 We have a touring puppet theatre, that's a mobile puppet theatre that drives around and goes to different events. 63 00:04:30,188 --> 00:04:33,280 And then the other side of it is the Evergreen community spaces. 64 00:04:33,280 --> 00:04:45,728 so basically what we do is we provide space to underserviced communities and sort of a lot of young entrepreneurs, a lot of female entrepreneurs and run all kinds of programs there. 65 00:04:45,728 --> 00:04:51,382 Evergreen also operates as the management company that manages the property and, you know, snow shoveling. 66 00:04:51,382 --> 00:04:54,926 And I spent the summer up on the roof, tarring the roof, you know. 67 00:04:54,926 --> 00:04:57,056 like you do for the children, right? 68 00:04:57,056 --> 00:05:04,506 So my name is Terri Lee Robchan and I'm the executive director of the Central Alberta Crime Prevention Centre. 69 00:05:04,506 --> 00:05:06,436 We operate at a Red Deer. 70 00:05:06,436 --> 00:05:14,186 We're involved in crime prevention and on that end of things, we provide services and we provide programming. 71 00:05:14,186 --> 00:05:19,076 And some of the things that you might hear about us would be our presentations. 72 00:05:19,076 --> 00:05:23,278 So we do crime prevention presentations, we do... 73 00:05:23,278 --> 00:05:29,398 fraud and scams, we sometimes focus on seniors, we do some senior presentations. 74 00:05:29,398 --> 00:05:34,278 We just try to help people figure out how to protect their property and themselves. 75 00:05:34,278 --> 00:05:37,718 My name is Mark Forney, I'm the Treasurer of the Wild Rose Humane Society. 76 00:05:37,718 --> 00:05:43,658 We are an animal shelter, a non-for-profit organization that works out of Didsbury, Alberta. 77 00:05:43,658 --> 00:05:47,936 We are a non-for-profit, as I mentioned, we have one paid staff member. 78 00:05:47,936 --> 00:05:51,548 All the other activities are completed by volunteer board members. 79 00:05:51,548 --> 00:05:55,730 have volunteer community members that come in and clean up with the cats. 80 00:05:55,730 --> 00:05:57,752 We have volunteer dog walkers. 81 00:05:57,752 --> 00:06:03,295 Sean, Terry Lee and Mark all do important work for their communities as part of their charities. 82 00:06:03,295 --> 00:06:06,997 And Jeff does his part to help them keep the lights on. 83 00:06:06,997 --> 00:06:09,478 Why did we decide to have a casino event? 84 00:06:09,478 --> 00:06:12,260 So first of all, I've been doing casinos probably for 20 years. 85 00:06:12,260 --> 00:06:15,021 So it's not it's not something that's new at all. 86 00:06:15,021 --> 00:06:16,882 Been doing them for a long, time. 87 00:06:16,910 --> 00:06:25,910 It is just part of the fabric and the way to stay alive in the Alberta funding structure. 88 00:06:25,910 --> 00:06:31,290 So why we chose to do it is because we need to pay the bills somehow, right? 89 00:06:31,290 --> 00:06:41,164 And there are opportunities for support for not-for-profits and charities in Alberta has diminished greatly over the last 10, 15 years. 90 00:06:41,164 --> 00:06:44,626 Well, this is the second time I've had the pleasure of working with Jeff. 91 00:06:44,626 --> 00:06:48,239 I think this was our organization's third casino. 92 00:06:48,239 --> 00:06:51,382 And so we've just been in rotation there every couple of years. 93 00:06:51,382 --> 00:07:04,171 And so we actually very much rely upon the casino for our vet costs because that's by far the largest, largest cost of the shelter. 94 00:07:04,171 --> 00:07:08,113 Over the years, we've looked at all kinds of different 95 00:07:08,844 --> 00:07:15,059 different opportunities and different things to do with varying degrees of success. 96 00:07:15,059 --> 00:07:18,001 We're already incredibly taxed. 97 00:07:18,001 --> 00:07:28,988 So we have to be very strategic in how we use our time in other areas and look at the maximum return on investment that we can get. 98 00:07:28,988 --> 00:07:33,151 I work very hard every day to keep everything just afloat. 99 00:07:33,151 --> 00:07:33,552 Right. 100 00:07:33,552 --> 00:07:35,523 So why we do it? 101 00:07:35,523 --> 00:07:37,374 Because we have to. 102 00:07:37,996 --> 00:07:42,448 We looked at a lot of different events, but they were all kind of small scale. 103 00:07:42,448 --> 00:07:48,091 So it'd be like we'd make $1,500 or we'd make $1,000 or we might only make $500. 104 00:07:48,091 --> 00:08:02,097 And that's where the casinos, know, really the amount of money that we were making, we could split over two to three years and it was a stream that we could rely on. 105 00:08:02,097 --> 00:08:05,058 Most charities need to get funding however they can. 106 00:08:05,218 --> 00:08:15,341 They know it's impossible to rely on just one source of funding, but for Sean, Mark and Terry Lee, they all agreed that the casinos do a lot of heavy lifting. 107 00:08:15,401 --> 00:08:23,123 So a charity has just gotten licensed for a casino by the Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis Commission or AGLC. 108 00:08:23,123 --> 00:08:24,323 What happens next? 109 00:08:24,323 --> 00:08:29,324 AGLC assigns them a casino and they're two days. 110 00:08:29,605 --> 00:08:34,306 At that point, they're required to hire a casino advisor and 111 00:08:34,520 --> 00:08:43,414 they're independent and so the people get to choose, the casino chairperson gets to choose which advisor they wish to work with. 112 00:08:43,884 --> 00:08:45,815 therein lies the kicker. 113 00:08:45,815 --> 00:08:50,127 So it is actually a requirement in doing casinos. 114 00:08:50,127 --> 00:08:53,199 For someone like Sean, he knows the landscape well. 115 00:08:53,199 --> 00:08:56,720 It's a familiar number and he knows all the moves. 116 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:01,012 Having a casino advisor is just another step of the process. 117 00:09:01,012 --> 00:09:06,185 So, I you have to kind of understand the fabric of how casinos operate in Alberta. 118 00:09:06,185 --> 00:09:17,172 We are required to have a licensed liaison who is licensed by the government, but a third party entity that helps through that process. 119 00:09:17,172 --> 00:09:27,832 So it's kind of an at arm's length, third party accountability and a way to be able to make sure that all of the standards and things are upheld. 120 00:09:27,832 --> 00:09:32,266 but it's up to him to pick an advisor who he thinks will ultimately help his organization. 121 00:09:32,266 --> 00:09:35,908 He's going to look at experience, skillset, and resources. 122 00:09:35,908 --> 00:09:41,893 He needs to know of a casino advisor who will provide the level of support that his organization requires. 123 00:09:41,893 --> 00:09:43,715 Jeffrey Dawson works with a team. 124 00:09:43,715 --> 00:09:51,841 That means something when schedules get hectic and charities need to talk to someone right away, or they need people there at the tables. 125 00:09:51,841 --> 00:09:53,454 It's about providing coverage. 126 00:09:53,454 --> 00:09:57,154 I've actually got a team of ten guys and gals that work for me. 127 00:09:57,154 --> 00:10:06,754 You get into a major casino, which is the ones in Edmonton and Calgary, there's a requirement to have three advisors each day, so it's not just one person. 128 00:10:06,754 --> 00:10:10,694 There's three, and so you need a team in order to make that work. 129 00:10:10,694 --> 00:10:16,604 Especially I have many times where I've got three or four casinos that we're operating in the same day. 130 00:10:16,604 --> 00:10:20,788 Every charity has different needs when it comes to casino advisors. 131 00:10:20,788 --> 00:10:24,639 Each chairperson has a different level of experience with casino events. 132 00:10:24,639 --> 00:10:31,805 Myself and some of my advisors have been chairpersons, have been on the other side of the equation. 133 00:10:32,006 --> 00:10:36,128 we know what we would have liked as a client. 134 00:10:36,149 --> 00:10:40,011 And we found that a lot of times the advisors don't do that. 135 00:10:40,011 --> 00:10:50,328 So we really try to be responsive, listen to what clients, where their pain is, and try to make the event an easy process for them. 136 00:10:50,328 --> 00:11:00,932 For Jeff, it's about simplifying the process, coming up with innovative ways to make the whole thing a lot less daunting, more manageable, and even fun for newcomers and even the 137 00:11:00,932 --> 00:11:02,943 most seasoned chairpersons. 138 00:11:02,943 --> 00:11:13,808 So it's important to make sure you get assistance from day one from an organization that understands how the paperwork needs to be done and make sure that you are filling the 139 00:11:13,808 --> 00:11:18,470 right paperwork at the right time so you can get to your event and get the proceeds. 140 00:11:18,470 --> 00:11:19,970 So why does Jeff 141 00:11:19,970 --> 00:11:21,311 do any of this? 142 00:11:21,311 --> 00:11:24,993 Well, I enjoy working with different people. 143 00:11:25,194 --> 00:11:31,629 The ability to go to different places and work with different people every day is very motivating. 144 00:11:31,629 --> 00:11:33,340 I love it. 145 00:11:33,340 --> 00:11:41,286 And the fact that we're helping charities make money to fund the activities that they do. 146 00:11:41,286 --> 00:11:47,350 Whether it's educational musical theater or crime prevention, we're taking care of animals without a home. 147 00:11:47,350 --> 00:11:50,653 or just about any other good cause you can think of. 148 00:11:50,653 --> 00:11:58,940 They all have a heart for whatever they're doing and so I enjoy helping them in their financial goals. 149 00:11:58,940 --> 00:12:10,311 At the end of the day, my hope is that the work that I will have chosen to do through my career will pay dividends at some point. 150 00:12:10,311 --> 00:12:14,654 And a lot of days it doesn't always feel that way, but when you get to go and see 151 00:12:14,934 --> 00:12:22,020 kids enjoying themselves and families enjoying themselves and you know people having a good time and it is very rewarding. 152 00:12:22,020 --> 00:12:31,368 Unfortunately as I'm sure a lot of you know like when you're in a leadership role you don't get a chance to see a lot of that your time occupies a lot of the more unfortunate 153 00:12:31,368 --> 00:12:35,851 and more negative things so it can feel a little bit discouraging sometimes. 154 00:12:36,012 --> 00:12:43,657 So I try and force myself to get out to be able to see clients because then you go, right that's why we do this. 155 00:12:49,006 --> 00:12:53,630 Casinos help charities in Alberta exist and function at the top of their game. 156 00:12:53,630 --> 00:12:59,274 Without the services the charities provide, communities would feel that all over the province. 157 00:12:59,274 --> 00:13:06,620 If the casino events Jeff helps his charities carry out are considered uneventful affairs, that means he did his job. 158 00:13:06,620 --> 00:13:08,442 It's like fire prevention. 159 00:13:08,442 --> 00:13:14,286 Speaking of which, a fire breaking out at a casino event is something Jeff has experienced. 160 00:13:14,286 --> 00:13:16,468 More on that in another episode. 161 00:13:16,468 --> 00:13:18,990 If a charity isn't prepared for the event, 162 00:13:18,990 --> 00:13:21,770 or makes a mistake anywhere in the process. 163 00:13:21,770 --> 00:13:24,100 The consequences could be devastating. 164 00:13:24,100 --> 00:13:29,440 So some of the things that can go wrong is not meeting deadlines. 165 00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:39,010 There are organizations that I'm aware of that they don't fill out the paperwork properly or maybe they intentionally make an error on the paperwork. 166 00:13:39,010 --> 00:13:41,070 I think they call that a white lie. 167 00:13:41,290 --> 00:13:43,710 If you get caught, ATLC could fine you. 168 00:13:43,710 --> 00:13:48,798 They could also remove you from getting future casino events. 169 00:13:48,798 --> 00:13:52,741 Next time on Raising Mistakes, we're going deep into the vault. 170 00:13:52,741 --> 00:13:56,523 It's all about the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission. 171 00:13:56,523 --> 00:14:02,356 Biggest misconceptions, mistakes, and what charities need to understand. 172 00:14:07,544 --> 00:14:10,457 another Everything Podcasts production. 173 00:14:11,839 --> 00:14:16,505 Visit everythingpodcasts.com, a division of Patterson Media. 174 00:14:16,505 --> 00:14:19,147 Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.