There is no better-watched place on earth but the casino floor. Gaming tables are under surveillance of hundreds of most advanced cameras operated by the best people. Casino security is so exceptional that even state agencies are coming for consultation. Let see what toys guard the safety of the biggest casino in the word.
Since people started betting on money, there were individuals trying to cheat on it. This is happening to this day. According to the Nevada Gambling Control Office, there are annually about 600 casino fraud cases. Casino employees themselves committed about 25% of these crimes.
Not surprisingly, the owners of these establishments invest millions of dollars each year in technology and people to prevent this activity.
All-Seeing “Eye in the Sky”
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Pic.1 camera
The most significant casino weapon in a never-ending battle with criminals is the incredibly sophisticated camera system. Larger gaming rooms have more than 1,000 cameras in the gaming area that can watch any gaming table or slot machines from multiple angles.
While enjoying casino, all the visitors are filmed and their photo is then sent to the face recognition system. In this way, fraudsters, card counters, and even so-called “whales” are known at the time they set foot at the casino floor. Besides the face recognition system, some casinos also use the slip-and-fall software to catch lawsuits hunters. This program analyzes walk and falls. The results of these analyses are then used in court proceedings when someone trying to sue the casino because they fall on the uneven or slippery floor.
NORA
However, the proverbial icing on the tracking system cake is the NORA (Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness) program, which is also used by government security agencies such as the CIA or the FBI in addition to casinos. This program works with an algorithm that searches for the connection between individuals.
In casinos, NORA is used to detect fraud when a croupier collaborates with visitor against the casino. Thanks to this algorithm, the casino can find out that two people lived together in the same street as children or if they for example shop at the same store.
RFID Chips
In the 1990s, frauds with counterfeited casino chips were very common in Las Vegas casinos. As a countermeasure, the gambling companies began to install special radio chips in all the higher denomination chips. Thanks to this technology, casino security can determine the value and exact location of these chips.
Pic. RFID Chips
It is also very easy to identify fake ones. At the cashier, all chips go through a special reader and those that do not contain the radio chips are not real.
Mobile Signal Jammers and Monitoring Device Identifiers
Like casinos, criminals still raise the bar and come up with better and more technologically advanced methods. These include, for example, micro cameras that are able to see cards being dealt or mobile applications that can predict the ball’s approximate impact point in the roulette wheel. In addition, mobile phones are a great way for fraudsters to communicate with each other. Therefore, all the big casinos use mobile signal jammers.
There are also technologies that can deal with the mentioned micro cameras. These cameras produce an inaudible sound to the human ears. But it can be recognized with a miniature device installed outside the table. However, this method is rarely used in casinos, because these devices can disturb the casino’s camera system.