My advice is to take the vacation day. Unless your job is at stake, the risk to your recovery is simply not worth it. Think back to your darkest days of your addiction and ask yourself if it is worth the risk -however slight.

Even if you do not gamble, you could end up thinking that is OK to be around it. That false sense of confidence could set you up for a relapse in the future.

Just my .02!

I was able to avoid gambling when going to a casino for a state pool tournament for a weekend. But I could only accomplish that by telling everyone I was going with about being a problem/compulsive gambler and asking them to help me find other activities.
This casino had a native American museum and a car show happened to be going on. After seeing those, I started exploring the town around the casino. It was a successful gamble free trip for me.

I can see not wanting to tell your coworkers, but if I trusted my boss, I would tell him/her what I was grappling with and ask their opinion about dealing with the situation.

If the work event isn't mandatory I would suggest not going. Or can you just attend the structured event and leave right after that? I'm sure that your job cannot make everyone gamble or play Bingo after the structured event.
I hope you will hold strong and be true to yourself.

As strong as I believe I am I do not want to be put to the test and jeopardize the progress I made. If I was in your situation I would not go. I traveled for work last week for 2 nights and the 3 coworkers I was with (including my supervisor) stayed at a casino. I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express a few miles away. I used the excuse that I quit smoking to avoid staying with them and visiting the casino because I don't know them on a personal level and didn't feel comfortable sharing my addiction. But to me it wasn't worth risking all this hard work.

I ended up attending this work event at the casino. Made a vow before going that I wasn't going to play a penny and I didn't. I walked around the whole casino and, since it was daytime, noted that most of the people were retired and elderly. Felt sad they were probably spending their social security checks on the slots. Noted a few people in my work group who seemed extra excited about gambling, and others who had no interest in participating, but it's likely I was the only person out of 50 or so who had experienced a compulsive gambling problem and had to consciously prevent myself from gambling. Wasn't that painful, though.

Glad you could refrain Islapoppy. I'm sure you must feel empowered and happy you did not step backwards.
Sending you a hug!

Good for you, islapoppy.

Relatively early on in my recovery, I spent a bit of time in a casino, and remember seeing some awfully sad faces. For me, avoidance was never going to be an option. It is around me in my everyday life, and I had to come to grips with that. I have found that, for me, dealing with it in this way has worked well. Of course, everyone is different-- I just wanted to put in my two cents.

Not many people around me know that I am a compulsive gambler. I tell people on a "need to know" basis, and most people simply don't need to know. When asked about going to a casino or (more frequently) partaking in other betting comes up, I just say "I don't gamble". (That was said in reference to your question about an alcoholic politely declining a drink.) It wasn't an easy thing for me initially, but I have found that it has become far easier over time.

justme717: I like the "tell people on a need to know" basis and most people don't need to know :) I figured that if I didn't go to this annual work event, I would be letting gambling be the boss of me. If I were only a year or two into my recovery it would have been dangerous, and I would have completely agreed with the people posting not to go. Even being several years away from a casino, I had a moment when I was walking through the casino last week and I saw my favorite slot machine that started my addiction to gambling almost 20 years ago. I was IN LOVE with this particular slot game. For example, when I went to Las Vegas I would walk all up and down the strip trying to find a casino that had this machine. I would look online to see if I could buy this slot machine to put in my house and play at home. I would throw thousands of dollars a night into this machine because I loved the bonus play feature so much. So it was crazy that this casino still had this particular machine, when most casinos don't. Sort of a good test to be able to walk by this slot game and say, no thanks.

unfortunately, my job requires me to go to vegas, last year was a massacre, this year fingers crossed I'll be ok, I have to go at end of July doing the best i can to prepare