Casino Security – How to Find a Cheater

The gambling industry attracts a lot of unlawful activity and unscrupulous gamblers are constantly looking to brazenly steal from casinos or cheat their way into winning jackpots and bets. As a result, casinos spend a lot of money on security measure.

Using Casino employees

It starts with the employees chosen to work in the casinos. The individuals chosen to work on the casino floors are trained to watch all the patrons to ensure that no under handed methods are used in any games and also ensure that patrons are not stealing from each other. Dealers are experts trained in spotting cheaters and their tricks such as switching cards and dice, palming, cheating betting patterns and other illegal techniques.

Using professional security staff

The other measure is the use of tracking of patrons studying their betting patterns, winning and losing patterns to identify any cheating patterns. This involves having professional security staff to study the routines and patterns of the players in every game being played on the casino floor.

These experts observe everything from the way that cards are dealt or shuffled, betting spot locations on tables, reactions and patterns of players and any other activity related to the games on the floor. Such a team will also keep an eye on the casino staff related to each gaming area ensuring that dealers follow the rules of the casino and do not engage in cheating scams, as well.

Using advanced technology

In some casinos card switching is a big issue. This is where scammers come in to the casino with specially marked cards and replace them with the casino cards by using the sleight of hand method. Gambling establishments have now come up with technological solutions to this.

A good example is the Angle Eye device used in baccarat games. It is a dealing shoe programmed to read invisible ink used to print the casino cards before they are distributed to players. The deal is recorded, and it also shows the dealer involved in the game. If a player attempts to replace a casino card with a marked card, the deal records will not match which will lead to the cheater being identified.

There is also the use of the Non – Obvious Relationship Analysis (NORA) software which helps to single out scammers in cahoots to steal from the casino. Scammers rarely work alone they just take care to arrive and leave establishments at different times. The NORA software uses surveillance footage of the casino floor. It runs the identities of customers present against a database of known cheats and suspected scammers. This helps to identify potential threats. This helps the security team to identify suspect individuals and watch them carefully to avoid any scams.

Using top notch surveillance equipment

Human is to error and having a security system completely based on human personnel is not a wise decision for a casino. Sometimes security agents get distracted or fail to notice some intricate scams in play. The use of surveillance equipment helps to take care of this, and a good example is the use of closed circuit cameras referred to as eye in the sky surveillance.

These cameras are placed all over the casino and positioned to observe activity on the game tables and seats around them, hallways, elevators, restaurants and any other relevant areas crucial to casino security. These cameras are covered with a plastic globe which makes it impossible to see which direction the cameras are facing, making it easy to spot suspect activity in the casino.

They are invaluable because they record activity in the casino and can be used to identify a scam even after it has taken place. They also spot each of the patrons in the casino at any time. In case of a crime, it is easy to investigate because they know the people to check on based on the patrons in the casino at the time.

These are just a few of the security measures, used in casinos, to identify and prevent cheating.