Casino Insider Tells (Almost) All About Security 232
An anonymous reader writes "ComputerWorld has up a story on casino security technology, exploring the world of facial recognition technology and various other systems in casinos such as the Bellagio, Treasure Island, and Beau Rivage. Industry veteran Jeff Jonas reveals some of the secret scams he learned from the casino industry such as the infinite hundred dollar bill, the hollowed out chip cup, the palm (trading cards), the specialty code (inserted by rogue programmer into video poker machine) and the cameraman, as well as detailing how casinos strike back against fraudsters and cheats.'"
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
When you get caught by NORA (Score:5, Interesting)
Untrue (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but I don't find this statement to be true.
There are plenty of people who understand the odds, but still love to gamble. To them it's about the thrill of possibly hitting it big. Those who do understand the odds tend to either play games like blackjack which is the only game in the casino which has positive odds, and those who simply walk in with $500 and intends to make it last as long as they can, but know that the chances of them walking out with more than they went in are not in their favor.
I'm not one of them, but then again I get it why others are like this.
The ones that count cards are simply trying to shift the odds in their favor for bigger payouts, and of course really only applies to blackjack (again, the only game with odds not in favor of the casino, but you have to know how to play to get your money).
The infinite $100 bill (Score:5, Interesting)
Casino security is neat. (Score:5, Interesting)
Note: I spotted that the texas Holdem tables had wide angle cameras just under the lip where you sit. Not low enough to get up-skirt shots, but where they can spot cards being handed. I started looking for it when a friend of mine was told by the pitboss to stop handing $5 chips to his friend. that's when I decided to drop my chips and bend over to pick them up and spot the lenses.
Takedown (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally don't play games of chance for money, just Texas Hold'Em where people with poor math skills are a steady income source.
waiting for the MIT movie (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:waiting for the MIT movie (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Untrue (Score:2, Interesting)
They want just to extend their play as long as possible knowing the strategy for their game. They look at the pay table and can tell they odds right by looking. Knowing that the longer they play the better the odds hitting that big hand. Video poker is a game of skill against the odds.
Re:waiting for the MIT movie (Score:5, Interesting)
If you work with a team and the next guy bets BIG, then its hugely in your advantage.
Your numbers are WAY off how multi-person counting works.
Interestingly, I've had dealers help me count before. Doing simple "count the tens" helps your odds on a non-continuous-dealt game, especially if you can get a one or two deck hand dealt. I had a dealer, who was watching me pull back as the tens had largely made their appearances actually told me "you don't want to take this next hit".
She was right.
Employees rip off casinos more than players (Score:5, Interesting)
There were occasional customers passing counterfeit bills and people screwing with the machines or trying to bend cards but there was a lot more people soiling themselves because they didn't want to get up from their slot machine and people losing their homes because they were addicted (happened to a cousin of mine) or getting kicked off because they started yelling at us when their credit card was maxed out.
card counting "mules" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Employees rip off casinos more than players (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to work full time as a musician, and I do know that for most casino shows we did we were paid in cash. And they paid us about halfway through whatever time we were contracted to play so we could spend our breaks donating back our earnings. Wondering if they really to take the same approach with their own staff.
Re:waiting for the MIT movie Counting Cards.. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_(2008_film) [wikipedia.org]
I just a few weeks ago read in a copy of Asian Week how these smart AMERICAN Asians figured out a card counting method and raked in the coin from one or more casinos. Now, we've got hollyweird picking up on this and whitewashing the cast. Amazing the shit hollyweird does to calculate to obtain the best studio ticket intake.
From Wikipedia, from Asian Week and Ben Mezrich (author of the book):
"Casting of Caucasian/Asian
Although the four main characters in Bringing Down the House were Asian-Americans in real life, studio executives have cast mostly white actors to portray them in the film. Ben Mezrich, author of Bringing Down the House, has noted a "stereotypical" casting process on the part of Hollywood.[1] In the book, Mezrich explicitly states that a young Caucasian betting large amounts of money stands out, while a young Asian or other minority would be less conspicuous. Asian Week called the casting a "whitewash," pointing out that if it were African Americans replaced by Caucasians, there would be more vocal protest."
Re:waiting for the MIT movie (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:card counting "mules" (Score:3, Interesting)
So if a casino opens a $10-$100 table, you MIGHT see ~$10/hour from it if you play perfectly. A few mistakes can cost you a good $1 or $2 per hour. Can you imagine doing a mind-numbingly boring job, sitting still for 8 hours a day, for just $10 per hour? Well, probably-- this is Slashdot-- but also imagine you have to personally pay for every error you make out of your own pocket.
You can try to mitigate the negative counts by not playing those hands, and only playing positive counts. But then you get fewer hands per hour. And some games might not let you join after the shuffle has occurred. Or you might lose your seat and miss out on the high counts.
I once spent five hours walking around a blackjack pit, and didn't see a single high-count that had an open seat. Tons of fun.
Re:Untrue (Score:4, Interesting)
You obviously don't understand the odds. As someone else pointed out blackjack has a definite if somewhat small percentage in the house favor. IIRC it's anywhere from 3% to 5% depending on the house rules. The best bet is actually craps. You need a table with a low minimum and a high odds bet ratio on line bets. The odds bet on line bets is the only bet in Vegas that pays out at exactly the odds of winning. The house has an advantage on the initial line bet but that can be minimized by betting the minimum initially and then putting out the maximum odds bet after you have a number. Circus Circus had tables with 10 to 1 odds bets at one time and I've seen 20 to 1 once at one of the smaller casinos but for the most part they're 2 or 3 to 1.
Re:waiting for the MIT movie (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, there are two reasons the casinos aren't too concerned:
So the casinos just balance the likelyhood of an effective team coming to town vs. the chance that they'll spot them in operation. Then they tally up the amount they'll earn from their tables from bad players. That'll tell them how much it's worth spending on anti-counting training/technology/etc. Why spend $500,000 on a new system to keep someone from earning $250,000 / year off you-- especially if there's only a 0.001% chance that team will come around. The numbers are fudged, but it's all just a numbers game. Somewhere along the lines, someone gets paid a bunch of money to tell them what the numbers are.
NMSE - No Mid-Shoe Entry. Yup, just about all the high-roller tables have that. It's rarer on the mid or low level tables, though, since their bread and butter is unskilled, transient traffic. I've seen a $50-$2500 table that allowed midshoe entry. Let me tell you, seeing people drop $500 a hand on a game they don't know how to play-- that's quite a sight to watch. Maybe I should just open a casino.
Re:Casino security is neat. (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course, the guy himself may have been impressed, but you can bet (sorry) that you didn't *quite* hit the red zone of the cheatalyzer.
Re:minimal risk, really... (Score:-1, Interesting)
I was rather amazed at the casino's incompetence regarding this. I worked floor security. I alerted my security shift supervisor, several slot technicians, the tribal council rep, and they all thought I was talking out of my ass and had a good laugh at my expense. I thought it was rather obvious that allowing a bet and then the refund of the same bet really screwed any kind of regular odds. I don't think they were laughing so hard when auditing turned up the $300k discrepancy after a week or so. That's a thousand (or so) quarter change refills of those five slot machines.
Scarily incompetent. Then they fired me for "disloyalty" to the casino because I didn't have gaming halted on those machines. A general floor security idiot (me at the time) can't close gaming or kick people out of the casino. Bastards.
Re:waiting for the MIT movie (Score:3, Interesting)
The counter measures you speak of involves using more decks for blackjack, I believe 5 is standard. Any discrete math / blackjack pros care to comment whether this affects the probabilities adversely for a player counting cards?
Re:Untrue (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Untrue (Score:0, Interesting)
It's not so much the difference, but the absolute edge. 0.02% house edge means that for every $100.00 you bet, they win $0.02 and you keep $99.98. At that rate, you can bet $100 every 5 seconds and only be down $14.40 in an hour. At 0.37%, you'd be down $266.40 in that same hour.
What this really means is that you can play for long enough to take advantage of a "good luck streak", and hopefully win a few dollars. If you enjoy the gambling in the first place, add in free drinks and cash in your pocket and it's a pretty good deal.
It's the same all over (Score:4, Interesting)
My 7-11 had a policy where employees kept <$100 in the register (all $20 bills and up went immediately into the timed safe). We had one employee who "forgot" the policy one particular day, and "coincidentally" that was the same day some "random" guy came in, held him up, and took all the money out of the register -- less than $1K but considerably more than was supposed to be in there. The employee really, seriously thought that the video cameras were going to vindicate him -- "look, there's the guy threatening me, isn't he scary?" As if an armed robbery had ever happened at this suburban 7-11 store before, in all the years it had been in business, up until exactly about three weeks after this clown was hired.
Another guy had been working there for about two days when some kids ran in and, in a flash, stole about six cases of beer. Security cameras showed the employee was nowhere to be found during the robbery. An eyewitness later came forward and said the employee had been standing out in front of the store during the incident, smoking a cigarette.
The smartest guy who ever ripped the place off actually kept his cool and bided his time. He was this Abercrombie and Fitch looking kid who was always all smiles and glad-handing, always ready to agree with the owners, always ready to talk down the other employees. Compared to the rest of the long-haired tweakers who worked at the store, he must have looked like the all-American boy. So they made him manager. About a month later, he walked away from the back office with about $6,000, abandoning his car in the lot.
Even that guy was stupid, though. Like I said, he abandoned his car in the front lot. So a coworker and I broke into it. Rifling his dashboard, we found a court summons. He was scheduled to appear in about two weeks' time on a prior charge. We called the sheriff's department and asked if they could please meet him at his court date at such-and-such time. And guess what? He actually showed up.
But the cops didn't. They showed up about 45 minutes late, by which time the case had already cleared the docket. Better luck next time, huh? So I guess the moral of the story is that there's a reason for stuff like video cameras if you're a business owner. Better grab all the evidence you can possibly get, because you might need it later. If you rely on the cops you could be in for a long wait.
Re:Untrue (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Magic slot machine sequence (Score:3, Interesting)
They have several safegaurds to prevent that kind of thing (especially now). I know that it is illegal for anyone involved in the developement/design/testing to enter a casino. I would imagine that they would have code reviews with a variety of people as well.
Also, that Breaking Vegas show was awesome. They did the big well known ones like the MIT team but also hit some that I had never heard of like the slot machine guy. Other highlights were the shoe computer to calculate the result of ruelette and analyzing the random number generator for keno to figure out the next game.
Re:Untrue (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Untrue (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say that's far less than the cost of equivalent entertainment at the movies which would have cost me something like $350 (for me and someone else) just in ticket costs. Factor in that I'm actually ahead $200 and I got a couple hundred dollars worth of drinks, and I'd say it must be the movies I'm doing wrong because half of them weren't worth theater ticket prices.
Re:Untrue (Score:3, Interesting)
Layne