Following the Chips in Wynn's New Casino

ctwxman writes "As Steve Wynn gets set to open his new Las Vegas casino, something new hits the tables: RFID encoded chips they report that "The fancy new chips look just like regular ones, only they contain radio devices that signal secret serial numbers. Special equipment linked to the casino's computer systems and placed throughout the property will identify legitimate chips and detect fakes" " " Having stayed pretty much everywhere else cool on the strip, I'm sure I'll try the Wynn out soon after it opens, but I think I'll be cashing out my chips before I leave the casino. It makes me nervous knowing I could be unwittingly scanned by others after I leave the floor. Of course, this added inconvenience may save me a fortune in blackjack losses!

Be calm, relax, things aren't that bad...

[Space cowboy]

The range over which you can read RFID information in any sort of portable (ie: non-obvious) fashion is limited to a few inches. In fact, tuning the damn things so they'll read at (say: 4 or 5) inches is hard.

The readers that are designed for doorways can do roughly 2 feet, but they're huge and very very obvious - they're designed for store entrances, where they make you walk through the "gates" to get in/out of the store. You can't miss a 4-foot (max) separated row of columns covering all the exits...

RFID works by the reader exciting a sympathetic response in the tag (which is itself unpowered, though it rectifies the incoming RF energy to self-power), this response modifies the reader's waveform signal, overlaying an incredibly weak (roughly 1% of the incident waveform) signal on top. It is this weak modification to the reader's signal that has to be extracted and deconstructed into a bitstream.

Speaking as one whom RFID has tried, it's not an easy task to get any significant distance between tag and reader, and IM(NS :-)HO the likelihood of being randomly snooped on wherever you go is damn small. Almost flying-pig small. Our asset management system aimed for a 6" separation between tag and reader, and we didn't care about being obvious though there were size constraints for the reader (had to fit in a 1U box). Getting repeatable results proved very difficult with the units we had.

Aside: London Underground introduced an RFID-based system for block-purchase of tickets, promising it would read your "ticket" in your bag/pocket as you passed by. This claim was dropped on introduction, and they now advise you to swipe the reader with your tag as you go by...

Simon.

Chips ain't the only thing being tracked...

[funny-jack]

from the rejected submission bin:

funny-jack [blogspot.com] says: A small school in the San Francisco area has come up with the latest "innovative" use for RFID: tracking student attendance [sfgate.com].

Not terribly new

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Back in the mid 1990s (1995-1997) when I was working for Casino Software Corporation of America, one of our major competitors already had this kind of system up and operating. Though I think thiers was ACTIVE RFID instead of Passive (was passive available that early?) they had readers in their blackjack table and even a scanner in the shoe to know what cards were where and who to pay out to. I always thought their system was a security hole- if you could grab the image off of the pit boss's system you would know the cards of everybody at all the blackjack tables. But their system sure did prevent the common "double payout" scam that was running around at the time (where the con man went to the table of a dealer he was paying under the table- and knew that he could get the bets paid incorrectly).

Another reason...

[johndeeregator]

Another reason for RFID chips is that they can be used to automatically detect bet amounts, and thus can be used to better determine appropriate player comps. For example, with blackjack, simply place a RFID sensor under the box where the player places his bet, and with the appropriate software, the floorman can instantly see how much the player has been betting (and, perhaps, winning and losing, although that's a little more tricky).

Also makes cashing out in the poker room quite a bit quicker.

Not Entirely New

[richlb]

Foxwoods Casino in Conn. has been using these in a limited way for a year or two.

I don't get it...

[gUmbi]

I'm sure I'll try the Wynn out soon after it opens, but I think I'll be cashing out my chips before I leave the casino.

I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to leave the property with the chips but even if you could, they won't be accepted at other casinos (especially since Wynn is not part of the major casino chains - unless you plan on playing in Wynn's property in Macau).

If you're concerned about going back to your room with chips because of theft - well, I think it's more suspicious redeeming them for cash in plain view.

The RFID features are meant to a) reduce theft, fraud and counterfeiting and b) reduce the time required to balance a table.

They are tracking the chip... not you...

[feepness]

They don't care about you, they care about where all the $500/%1000 chips are.

They will see when it is put into a rack, taken out of a rack, and can match that up to the cameras if a particular dealer or shift is consistently low on their "take".

Casinos are far more worried about their EMPLOYEES stealing (or conspiring with accomplices) than their regular customers. You're giving your money away anyways, what do they care how you do it?

Detection range much longer

[redelm]

RFID tags used for tollways (in Houston & elsewhere) can read a tag going 60+mph (100km/h) from a distance of 12+ft (2.5m). Reliably! The reader is a flat panel about one foot (30cm) square.

Perhaps these tags are mroe than a single chip, and have a small loop antenna. But so could casino chips. I'd expect multiple readers (up to one per gaming point, plus each seat & a series for the dealer) to be built-into gaming tables eventually.

Re:Detection range much longer

[HEbGb]

EZPASS and Fastlane tags are powered transmitters [howstuffworks.com] - there's a lithium battery inside them. This is a complelety different beast from the RFID tags in the casino chips (and other small passive devices).

Re:Addendum from the original poster

[spoco2]

I think anyone who's read Slashdot for any period of time knows that the post is in italics and anything else is by the editor who posted the story... This sort of writing happens ALL the time, no-one gets confused... at least I thought they didn't.

Re:Does this scam still work?

[nsayer]

You're almost right.

1. You don't need a friend. In roulette, you bet against the house - each player plays independently.

2. It's not a free weekend, but it is cheap.

3. You take your $500. Bet $13 each on 0 and 00. Bet $237 each on red and black (or odd and even, or any other 2:1 action). If 0 or 00 comes up, you get $468. If either red or black comes up, you get $474. Thus, your weekend costs you either $26 or $32. Of course, if you feel lucky, you can omit the 0 and 00 bets and simply bet $250 on red and black. The house then has a 5% chance of busting you completely, but you have a 94% chance of having a free weekend. Either way, you get paid in live chips, and can cash them in immediately.

4. In addition to the straight monetary costs, the hotel gets to make whatever interest it can having had hold of your money (usually) for a (sometimes lengthy) period of time in advance. And, of course, you run the relatively small risk of getting mugged with your $500 (or less) between the casino and your bank.

5. I haven't been to Nevada (I play poker, so I don't have to leave California) in a long time, but I recall hearing about such offers at least as late as the '80s, so it's possible it still goes on.

Former MIKOHN employee

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for Progressive Gaming International, the company that was formerly known as Mikohn. The system that they use for rfid's is total crap. It could on a good day count a stack of 20 chips. But the unwilling nature of the management team to update older than you would believe equipment caused massive problems. The data network that it employs for passing information is pathetic. Even worse is the horrible installation of the tables in a casino. The people employed to install the systems make rats nests out of the cables and wires then shove it all into the base of the table. It's the old out of sight out of mind BS. The nail in the coffin is that the original programmers and hardware designers are not even there anymore and were not replaced. This cause quite a problem one time I remember when they had to contract one of the guys back to fix bugs that had been in the system since day one. The only name I will say anything about is mentioned in the article. Tim Richards was at one time a great guy that wanted to make mikohn a great company with great products. But he just like the rest of the management have listened to the wrong people for far too long. The mistakes he has made are huge and it is why the 16 million in table game revenue (public knowledge by the way) has been steadily dropping for years.

Something else related to the MIKOHN tables and chips that is really funny. At one time they fired most of the staff that made and tested the tables. Then they hired the former Coe's secretary to lead the table group. Then hired a former human resources flunky to train the casino workers on the tables. Mind you neither of which had any experience relating in any way to this field at all. THEN they wondered why the profits were tanking.........

I'm not a disgruntled former employee, but I thought I would share some facts and funny things about the tables and the management.

That's it for my rant.........

Re:Be calm, relax, things aren't that bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first of all, if you can counterfeit a poker chip then you can counterfeit an RFID tag to go in it as well. If the idea is to give every chip a unique serial number, then you can make them up. Of course, the machine should know what numbers are valid. So, you just create dupes of existing serial numbers. What happens to the poor sucker with a real chip if you cash a duped chip first, the machine accepts it, and then flags his chip as a counterfeit because it already has that serial number logged in?

But, counterfeiting poker chips is risky. Casinos take it very seriously, and their cashiers are trained to spot fakes just like the dude at the 7-11 is supposedly trained to spot fake $20 bills. They are going to really inspect any large transaction, especially under suspicious circumstances.

As someone who handles poker chips very often (I play poker at card rooms very frequently), I deal with experienced chip handlers a lot. Casino chips are stored in racks of 100 chips, divided into 5 equal stacks. The color of the chip, along with the color and pattern of the chips' edge spots, make it very easy to spot a foreign chip in a rack with a single glance. Really experienced dealers, cashiers, and poker players can glance at a stack of chips and tell how many are there. It's not hard to do; considering people can tell by the sound of a riffle how many cards are in a deck, I expect that skill is one anyone can develop.

Casino chip counterfeiting is not trivial. The chips are ceramic, formed under immense heat and pressure. More recent techniques involve polymers designed to closely approximate that real chip look-and-feel in a much less destructible object. There are many techniques to preventing chip counterfeiting, much like with national currencies. You have to get the weight exactly right, chips surfaces are textured, the printing process is not trivial, they make a particular sound when two of them collide, etc.. Casinos use holograms on their high-denomination chips, or unusual surface treatments (Lucky Chances, for example, has some kind of thin, strong plastic coating on their >= $20 chips that is just slick enough to prevent doing most fancy chip tricks with them).

Making a good casino-quality chip is an expensive, involved process! Embedding an RFID tag is just another step in creating a successful counterfeit.

Ahh, well, the only counterfeit I care much about is when that goddamn deuce drops on the river, counterfeiting my low and making me wonder once again why I like Omaha 8-or-better so much.