Security gadgets take on fraudsters
The video footage helped the teenage Hong Kong native win the money after Sands casino in the southern Chinese city refused to pay her, arguing she was too young to be there.
The unprecedented case, which made headlines worldwide in February, was decided when Macau's gaming watchdog promised whoever won a game “without cheating” would receive their payouts.
The watchdog ruled that the underage player had entered the casino unchallenged, and was therefore entitled to her winnings.
Such issues are usually top secret affairs, unless, like in Ah Tung's case, they are leaked to the press.
Casino operators are highly secretive about the systems designed to stop cheaters, fraud or settle money disputes like this.
Four major casinos in the gambling haven of Macau contacted by AFP all turned down requests to discuss their security operations, and the suppliers of gaming technologies and equipment are cagey about the topic.
“Anti-cheating strategies and mechanisms are always our major concern and they are in place in each of our casinos,” said a spokeswoman for Asia's oldest casino resort, Hotel Lisboa.
“However, we choose not to discuss such security-sensitive subjects in public."
Andy Mok, sales director of Vodatel Systems which designs surveillance systems for casinos, said operators invest millions of dollars in high-tech programmes to combat fraud and cheaters.
From the moment visitors walk onto a casino floor through a metal detector, they are watched by multiple cameras and security guards, with their movements recorded continuously from every angle, he said.
Several Macau casinos are also testing face-recognition technology to keep cheaters off their premises, Mok said.
Vodatel's software can match a person's cheekbones and eyeballs against a database of undesirable gamblers provided by law enforcement authorities across the world, Mok said.
CCTV, though, remains a major surveillance tool.
“They couldn't operate without it. If a table is not under surveillance they won't have gaming on their table,” said Andrew Hubble, regional manager of Dallmeier International, which supplied CCTV systems to Sands and the Venetian Macau resort-casino, to be opened on Tuesday.
Dallmeier is providing 3,000 digital video recorders to the new mega resort and this will grow to more than 6,000, making it the world's largest digital surveillance system.
“Casinos are the most pro-active and sophisticated user of CCTV solutions out of any CCTV user,” he said.
With an average of two and a half cameras watching each gaming table, they have the capability to zoom close enough to see what value of chips are used, where the bets are placed and count how many chips are on a stack.
Even the individual chips themselves can be monitored by an embedded radio frequency tracker, said International Gaming Technology (IGT), the world's largest slot machine provider and a provider of gaming monitoring systems.
The tags have been used on new passports, to track library books and livestock, and has been used in Las Vegas casinos for two years. The system will enter the Macau market at the Venetian.
Eric Lancaster, IGT product marketing manager, said a central computer can track and monitor chip movement between tables or from table to “cage", where players purchase and cash in their chips.
With antennae placed underneath gaming tables, soon casinos will be able to detect players who sneak fake chips into and out of their bets.
“Where there is money involved, there's an element of greed, there's a potential of theft,” Hubble of Dallmeier said.
“Casinos are always prepared to investing in millions of dollars in systems that will assist them in protecting their assets."
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