By Vanessa Wolf

Have a Benjamin Franklin burning a hole in your pocket and a hankering for some creative sushi rolls – and lots of them? Maybe you just want to play a (legal) game of Texas Hold ‘Em?

Perhaps you just want to take a shot at the craps table without mortgaging your house. Craps is the type of game that can make people do things that they normally wouldn’t do. Like some kind of gambling fever, it takes hold. You can be the most conservative person in the world, but step up to a craps table and transform into a loose cannon.

Minimize your risk and consider attending the Grand Wailea’s Third Annual Shared Holiday Celebration tonight from 7 p.m. to midnight.

Things get started with hors d’oeuvres featuring inventive sushi options like the “Ahupua’a Roll”: Big Island Kobe beef wrapped around snow crab, tempura asparagus, cucumber,
alae salt and sesame-miso Aioli.

The spread will also include the “Humu Spiny Roll”, made with ahi, asparagus, lobster salad, tempura flakes, kaiware sprouts,
avocado, and tobiko; as well as ahi and Hamachi nigiri.

Not feeling the sushi?

The event also features entrees like slow roasted organic turkey with giblet gravy and macadamia nut sage stuffing and 72-hour slow braised beef short ribs with Maui onions and a porcini demi glace.

Those less meat-inclined might enjoy the wedge or Waldorf salads, roasted figs, artisan cheeses, or freshly prepared 
shrimp, scallops, clams, vegetables and soba noodles cooked in a tomato saffron broth.

Once you’ve eaten yourself silly, consider dancing some of those calories off to the DJ spinning tunes throughout the night, or hit the tables at 10 p.m. when games such as blackjack, Texas Hold-em, Wheel of Fortune, roulette and the aforementioned craps start up.

Even if you’re unlucky at cards, dice, and spinning wheels of fortune, attendees have a chance to win one of several door prizes including a Spa Grande give-away, dinner for two at Humuhumunukunukuapua’a, and a trip for two to Las Vegas including airfare and three nights’ accommodation.

Tickets are $100 per person including tax, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the 2013 Maui Visitor Industry Charity Walk.

Adult beverages will be available at the cash bar and all attendees must be 21 or over and ready to prove it. Complimentary valet parking will be available, as well.

The resort recommends wearing “festive evening attire” and bringing your ID and your A-game, because a Heads Up Hold ‘Em showdown is no time to realize you aren’t sure if you’re staring at a good hand or not.

We welcome your feedback. Please let us know if you hear of any new restaurants opening or reopening, total menu overhauls, or simply know of a hidden treasure you want to share. Have a restaurant you want reviewed (or re-reviewed)? Drop us a line.

Dying to know how a certain dish is made so you can recreate it at home? Send in a request, and we will try to pry the secret out of the chef…and even take a run at cooking it up ourselves. Mahalo. -Vanessa (@mauinow.com)