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First and foremost, I wish to express my appreciation to all of the Club members that participated in the 2009 OTY Awards contests. This means the people that posted or made available for posting, scans of chips, cards/keys and strikes to the Un-Official OTY Candidate Viewing Site. It also means those individuals who took the time to submit into nomination one or more candidates in the categories of Chip of the Year (COTY), Silver Strike of the Year (SSOTY) and Slot Card/Room Key of the Year (CKOTY). I call these people the “nominators” and without them, there would be nothing to vote on!
Continuing, I wish to thank all the voters. Without voters, there would be no winners! We must also thank the “loaners”. Those are the people that provide me, on a temporary, or loaner basis, each of the nominated OTY Finalists so that they can be put on display at the Convention. Also getting a round of applause are the “donors”. These people, who are not fully corralled just yet, that have donated the winning OTY item to the Club’s Permanent Collection of All Past OTY Award Winners.
Lastly, I’d like to thank the 
Board for the continuance of the OTY Awards contests, now in it’s 20th year, and I express my gratitude to my son Casey for his help in keeping the mailings together and other such duties as the Assistant OTY Awards Chairman.
As noted previously, this year’s contests were won by the Palms Casino Resort and the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, as follows:
Slot Card/Room Key of the Year -Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV for their Santana room key. (NOTE: Larry and Alice Kopp have donated this key to the 's Permanent Collection.)
Silver Strike of the Year – Palms Casino Resort, Las Vegas, NV for their $200, Lady Liberty chase strike.
Chip of the Year - Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV for their $5, Limited Edition “Friday the 13th” (November/clock) gaming chip.
These winners were announced at the 2010, 18th Annual Convention at the SouthPoint Hotel and Casino on Friday, June 25th. In attendance and accepting the OTY Awards were:
Archie Black, Past President and Hall of Fame Member of the accepted the CKOTY Award for the absent Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV.
George Maloof of the Palms Casino resort was on-hand to accept the SSOTY Award for the Palms and Shaun Sarr accepted the Award for Sunshine Mint.
Archie Black, Past President and Hall of Fame Member of the accepted the COTY Award for the absent Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV. Accepting the COTY for Gaming Partners International (GPI) was Michael Leonardo and the entire art department of GPI
We thank and appreciate the presence of the Award winners at the ceremony!
As a special Thank You to all of the 2009 OTY Award “nominators” I had the below imaged chips created and will be sending each of you one of the colored chips. If you have a preference, please send me an email, otherwise it will be by luck of the draw. For those who attended the Convention and I saw you, you should have gotten the chip then.
It should be noted that the costs associated with having the chips made and mailed, are not costs passed to the . These are a personal Thank You from Casey and me, for fulfilling the MOST critical aspect of the OTY Awards process; submitting Nominations!
Last, but not least, it is noted that when GPI came to the Convention to receive their OTY Award, they brought along an assortment of Paul-Son made sample chips converted into key chains. These souvenirs were offered by GPI as a Thanks for the OTY Award and in discussion with the Board, it was decided to first make these souvenirs available to the 2009 OTY “nominators” as detailed below.
If you were a 'nominator' to the 2009 OTY process and you would like to receive several of the GPI provided Paul-Son sample chip key chains, then please email your claim to me. (NOTE: I will not publicly confirm (or deny) anyone's status as it relates to having voted or having made a nomination.) I will validate your being a “nominator” participant and send you the souvenir key chains after the issuance of the next CCTN (where this same information will be included for our non-Internet connected members).
Any and all unclaimed key chains will then be turned over to Club Promotions for general fund raising sales, or follow-on distribution as determined by the Board. While I cannot speak for the future OTY winners, it is my intent to have another version of the 'OTY Thanks!' for the group of 2010 OTY “nominators” created for next year’s OTY contests.
Jim Follis
OTY Awards Chairman
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