Casino surveillance: gentle big brother

As a card counter and a person that gives seminars on card counting at www.goldentouchblackjack.com, I think that casino surveillance has gone too far.

Being asked to leave a casino because a person can beat the game legally is just plan un-American!

The casino is offering their blackjack games to the public and if someone can beat them legally they should not be allowed to tell that person to leave. Or worse yet, and this has happened to me, the casinos can read you the trespassing act. So if you step foot on their property again after being read this act, the can arrest you! Now how un-American is that!
Dom LoRiggio
Dominator

Target stores can read your drivers license at the counter from there cameras above, and the cameras are almost as good on the sales floor. When I was told about how good the camera are, my first reaction was every local school should get the full tour of the camera pit. It should reduce the thief by 80% from young people in the know. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. This tracking should keep design and business anthropologist going strong for decades selling you everything you begin to feel you need by the time you get to the back of the store should not be impossible.

Casino monitoring speaks volumes about the level of trust the casino industry has for its customers and employees. Of course, casinos are understandable -- mixing gambling, with money and booze. While extreme, it all comes down to trust, and I think a lack of trust can actually erode the potential of any relationship.

A related example is nanny-surveillance cameras. Many parents in my neighborhood of Pelham Manor have them, but I've noticed that their presence builds a wall that prevents a fruitful relationship from ensuing between nannies and their families.

My wife and I thought about nanny cams, but decided blatantly not to deploy one. Instead, we give our nanny the benefit of the doubt and trust that our initial background checking and interviews were strong indicators of character and trustworthiness. Moreover, we encourage frequent interaction between our nanny and other members within our community, including adjacent neighbors and nearby grandparents. Of course, my wife and I check in mid-day, everyday.

There are approaches to accountability in relationships which build trust and mutual benefit. For the paranoid, there also are approaches which erode trust and, by extension, richness of relationship.

- Max

Max, I agree about nanny cameras and share your views about accountability in relationships. But the casinos are dealing with crowds of people they don't know. And some of the people are using all their wits to cheat the casinos. One other thing. Despite the surveillance at casinos, there's a certain respect for anonymity. Gamblers don't have to give their names. Casinos throw away the video records after a couple of weeks. As far as I could tell, the woman I described in the blog post never had to say her name or show ID.

What happens when you turn out to be wrong about your nanny? It's one thing to overlook thieves and cheats in a casino in the interest of building a relationship with your customer, it's quite another to overlook the safety of your child! I understand what you are saying about the importance of the relationship, but there's been too many instances of child abuse and neglect that could've been avoided to take the chance in the interest of "feeling good" about the relationship with your child's caretaker.

Back on topic, thank you for talking about this whole quis custodiet thing.

You're right about the mix of decision influencing factors. There are plenty more of course, even for the honest watcher- proximity to the end of the shift, pressure to achieve "results", and how he feels that day are examples.

Never mind the influences on the corrupt watcher.

To my mind, the casino or store customer at least has the choice to engage, or refuse to engage, in the relationship with the business.

I work in law enforcement. We have a requirement- and a genuine desire - to be objective. But reality DOES seep in, no matter how we try to guard against it, even in ourselves.

I just want to say that today the purpose of casino surveillance is not only that big brother is watching but to minimize the criminal element in a casino environment. With a focus on customer service how does that work? Surveillance gets a call regarding a stolen purse the motive for reviewing the area and catching the purse snatcher isn't to just bust someone but to let the customer who had her purse stolen know that we're there to get her things back. So she can go and tell her friends or family that the casino took care of her by getting those very personal things back for her and getting rid of the scum that took her things.

Yes, I agree with everyone who's said that card counting should be legal. This has been said before, but I'm saying it again. The person isn't using anything electronic, just his brain. Only a very few people can actually do this. I'm talking about at the expert level. But it comes down to this. The casino apparently can do whatever it wants. But in my view, not letting people who can actually have an upper foot and win some money like people who can count cards in and play...Well, that just shows me that casinos are cowards. Yeah, yeah, yeah...they don't care. They are still getting richer. But I'm sure this will hit one of them sooner or later. If the casino looks like a coward, then the owner is tremendously cowardice. He has people do all his dirty work for him. Throwing out people, getting rid of unwanted players, etc...etc...Not once having to show his coward of a face to probably someone who could have kicked his butt in high school. I'll put my money on the unknown if anyone of them pussy casino owners wants to duke it out. Even if it's Screech. lol...Man, knowing that all casino owners are more of a coward than Screech from Saved by the Bell is something I just wished everyone knew. Maybe I'll just keep spreading it, sooner or later it'll get to everyone. So, to people like Steve Wynn...lol...The only thing you'll ever "win" at is in name only. You've failed at everything else. As a father, family man, and even as a man. I didn't know they made suits for wussies. Wussy Gap? Oh, by the way...There are numerous flaws in any casino surveillance room that is ALWAYS overlooked. I found two of them in the Bellagio. Funny how the most obvious of a security breach can be so overlooked. A person right now, can walk right into the Bellagio, and within 5 minutes can walk out with up to $145,000 in cash depending on what day it is, and be scott free. They'll never know about it until 12 days later. And when they finally do, it's impossible to go back and find out who it was. All those cameras they have would be useless. I know this because I worked on the inside for a while. Oops, did I say too much there? Nope. Oh and this flaw that I have mentioned, can be done up to 4 times without any worries. And people, I'm talking about the Bellagio, Wynn, etc...etc.....The top of the line casinos...haha...What a waste.

Card counting is legal, but it is also legal for a company to bar people. another thing if you owned a grocery store that did not have any means to account for the money at the time of the transaction, would you keep a watchful eye on the cashier? there are no receipts on table games at a casino. Surveillance is nowadays watching mainly the staff and watching for advantage players.

Ok so I dont understand why so many people talk about how great card counting is.. when ya know.. this article mentions nothing of card counting, but instead of past-posting (sneaking extra money onto an already active bet, after "no more bets" has been called). As for card counters i really couldnt give a stuff about them, they only bring their edge up to about 1.5% and even there this is an element of luck which can take them to the cleaners aswell. The players bankroll is much small then the casino's.

I believe that the casino did the right thing in protecting the casino assets no matter 5 dollar or 500 dollar chip. In the future automated video monitoring will be looking for sudden movement guestures from guests or how a persons body movement might relate to a possible theif in action then the warning signs will alert a human to double check the softwares findings.

I have no problem with "big brother" surveillance. I have nothing to hide. When people know they're being watched, it keeps them more honest. That goes for the customer AND the employees.

I think card counting could be removed from surveillance responsibility and save much effort/work/money for the casinos if they would have an area and time set aside for the card counters to play at their casino. In fact they could have a high publicity event like the Poker Tournaments just for the expert BJ card counters. This way the card counters would be rewarded for their effort in becoming experts in card counting and the casin would reap benefits in publicity.

Some stupid comments (Goat). It is not only a few people who can card count successfully, any moron can. So you either keep it away or shut down every casino (and I really don't care which one you pick).

This is in reference to (Goat) i can tell from the way you speak that you were never "on the inside" as you put it. And if you know so much about the weaknesses of Surveillance why don't you educate us all in the methods not just "i can do this", prove that your not full of well you know. And personally attacking a casino owner, saying that their cowards, that doesn't make much sense to me. You say they can't do the dirty work themselves, if you where so lucky to own a casino would you do the jobs of your employees for them, i dont think so.

Being a Surveillance Supervisor/Manager for the last 16 years, I see both sides of the issue. A few points based on previous comments. Surveillance is not the evil "big brother" that one might think. We are a support team that protects the company, the State's interests, the employee and the customer. Ensuring the intergrity of gaming is our goal. Surveillance simply observes, reports and documents activities. The decisions, such as backing off players for various reasons, is ultimately made by table games management or others, not by Surveillance. As far as calling this cowardness, or not fair, I have this very important point to make. The casinos have made billions of dollars by providing a game that can be beat. How can this be? Well, only a very small fraction of those people who claim to be counters can actually obtain an advantage in the long run. By promoting card counter paranoia, the casinos have created more "so called" card counters to keep playing (at a disadvantage). It is brilliant marketing. The casinos give the impression of fearing these advantage players in order to generate more business - and the card counters cry foul. Nobody wants card counting to be illegal - especially the casinos. They want everybody to read a book, practice at home and then try their "new talents" at the casino. Trust me, the casinos are a master of disguise and have used this to their advantage - otherwise, the game wouldn't be offered. Now back to the original post. Surveillance is trained to read body language and understand the psychology of the gambler, cheater, con-artist, card counter, etc... We need to have this ability in order to protect everyone involved. Are we going to far? Should we turn a blind eye? I sure hope not. Without Surveillance, casinos would cheat the players, employees would steal from the company, customers would steal from the casino and other customers, employees and customers would file false claims in an attempt to sue the casinos, everyone's medical and insurance prices would go up, etc... I hope you get my point. Surveillance directly or indirectly protects YOU! We are not talking about wire tapping your phone or reading your mail (where there is an expectation of privacy). You are in a public place where the same rights don't apply. It's kind of ironic, everybody wants privacy until something happens to them, at which point they expected to be protected by security and/or video. You can't have it both ways. Sorry I rambled a bit, but I wanted to throw in my two-cents.