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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!
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
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.
Physicists get Hadrons!
ehhh, it hardly matters. the house always gets its chips back eventually....
Go to a casino, bring some foil. Put the chips in your pocket and put one in the foil.
Smuggle it out of the casino and then see what makes it tick when you get it home.
If the RFID technology is similar to the car key RFID technology that was recently cracked...
now my fake chips that broadcast incorrect serials won't work. Wait, my chips don't broadcast anything, so how does this affect me?
Seriously, this seems like a better way to keep track of chip movement (superimposing a map of chip movement on a casino mapto see where people go first, what patterns they follow around the floor, etc), big spenders, etc, than preventing fake chips.
to take a chip you legally bought out the door?
I see this as a way to protect against theft, as in bringing illegal duplicate chips in the door.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
from the rejected submission bin:
funny-jack says: A small school in the San Francisco area has come up with the latest "innovative" use for RFID: tracking student attendance.
You probably shouldn't click this.
RFID has become kind of a catch-22. Many critics of the technology warn that it could become the next way for Big Brother to watch over the unsuspecting public. It also has potential to do great good, as in what has just been listed in this article. RFID is also used to track lost dogs, cats, and other pets. It can also be a use for ID theft, though
"WHAT? I just got it from the blackjack table over there!"
"Remain calm. Casino security will be with you shortly."
In other words.... PWN3D!
The blurb seems to indicate that this is a first. If so, I'm really surprised. Many times I've seen dealers pass chips (usually $100 or more) over a scanner that lights up. I assumed that it was checking that the chip was valid, and I guessed that they were using RFID. That's how I would have done it anyway, and I figure that they're AT LEAST as smart as me.
Looking over the rooms on the web site, I'm surprised at the room rates. The small rooms are expensive (start at $349 per night) and the big rooms are relatively cheap (a 1950 sq. ft. suite for $850 per night). Big suites in other casinos are usually a couple thousand a night (I get this by window shopping, believe me).
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Seems to me it could be spoofed, but I Am Not An Expert. What if you have a small radio transmitter in your pocket to swamp the table's RFID transmitter? Maybe read the RFID at one table, and play it back later to spoof some other table?
Plus it would give the security personnel a false sense of security, and maybe more traditional ways of cheating would be easier.
I wonder if this is not just a publicity ploy, just make some noise to get more people in who would not otherwise come in.
Infuriate left and right
Aside from helping to stop counterfeitting, these RF chips could also be used to further what casinos already do: track players. If you know what players have what chips you can figure out what bets they place at table games easier.
:)
They already do this with slots (where you put a card in with credits) to keep track of comps and the like. If this were implemented into the chips, it would be easier to keep tabs on mid-low range players and who is a good repeat player for issuing comps.
Just an expansion of many casinos approach to customer relations
And this year's hottest school trend is(you guessed it):
Tinfoil hats!
That new hotel/casino is a very slick-looking building. I saw it for the first time two days ago when I was in Vegas on business. It's also right across the street from the Las Vegas Apple Store in the Fashion Show mall.
They will be able to track individual gabling habits, and from that, system usage.
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).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That's nothing. Call me when they RFID the cards. I've got a hankerin for some poker.
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.
Foxwoods Casino in Conn. has been using these in a limited way for a year or two.
If I took some chips out of the casino, rendered the RFID tags useless with a magnet (or whatever it takes), then went back and requested payment, would they refuse to pay?
I can potentially imagine the big stink that would arise if RFID tags stopped working in valid chips for some reason. Suppose you were playing blackjack and won a ton of money, went straight to the cashier, and they refused to pay because the RFID tags weren't responding. I can imagine lawsuits would spring up pretty darned quickly.
What if someone put a small but mighty magnet on top of someones stack of chips?
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 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?
You know, we'd have saved a lot of time on the Woozie Vegas mission strand if he'd implemented those RFIDs on his chips.
(Possible Spoilers if you haven't gotten past San Fierro)
No driving around with a guy tied to the front of the car, no raiding the chip factory, no real fight against the mafia. No parachuting onto another plane, no trip back to Mark's Bistro.
OTOH, no hideout at the 4 Dragons Casino either. (No big loss, really, but it's good for doing save-cheats when gambling)
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.
does anyone know where to get an affordable hand held RFID reader? it would be nice to know weather certain places/things are RFID enabled.
also is there anything someone could carry with them to make RFID reading useless? like a Credit card type card that will make it so the reader can't read these casino chips or your RFID drivers license?
So would not gambling in the first place.
The electronic verification of casino chips is not a new implementation. The Paris Las Vegas and Bally's Casino do it now for $100 (and presumably larger) chips.
I found this out first hand a few weeks after Paris opened. After a reasonably successful turn at the tables I cashed in several $100 chips and was "tapped on the shoulder" by security a few hours later for a trip to the back room. One of the chips, which I received from the dealer, was a fake with a Bally's logo (both have the same parent company). The scanners in the casino cage identified the fake but not until after I was paid.
"Honey, how did you do at the black jack tables?"
"Lost everything."
"Was that before or after you gave that floozy a $100 chip?"
"Damn you RFID!"
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"However, financial losses due to counterfeit chips are usually minor, and few perpetrators get away with it, Copher [NGC's Chief of Enforcement] said." I really don't think counterfitting is their primary concern. Why don't they just come out and say that they want to track card-counters and people to give comps to?
I think it is a lie! They are just saying that they'll RFID their chips for two reasons. The first is to increase security by scaring people, and the second is to get free publicity. So, they get two windfalls (security, publicity) for nothing! Profit!
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
While it may be difficult to track chips on the table, the techonology would be very useful in the cashier's office. For one thing, you could incorporate an RFID reader in your chip counter - that would prevent someone from cashing in counterfeit chips. Also, while it's alright for players to walk out of the casino with chips, it's not okay for employees to walk out of the cash office with chips. While they already have cameras galore in there, RFID would give them another way to make sure cashier office staff didn't walk out with a spare chip or two - unless their underwear from Wal-Mart sets off the scanner.
Sweet, it's like that Cowboy Bebop episode where they put an encryption key to a master decryption program in a poker chip!
Now when I want to decide who in a casino to beat up and rob, I just have to buy a detector, figure out which poor bastard has the most money, and follow him! No more muss or fuss with guessing wrong and going to the trouble of mugging some jerk who's poor.
There are much better uses for identifiable chips than preventing fraud. This makes it much easier to track player habits down to every dollar they bet. Think of a poker game. On a player-by-player basis, you can now track every doller bet during every moment of the game. This would presumably make comensation systems more accurate (rewarding someone for being a riskier gambler rather than dead weight at a table). With a little mathematics and CPU time it would be trivial to watch for collusion between players in Blackjack and Poker.
_______
2B1ASK1
silly ass mods.
Only I was tracking the chips in a chocolate chip cookie. I found out they all ended up in the same place and they all ended up the same color.
I suspect if a casino had the slightest idea you may be trying to circumvent *any* system they have in place you will find yourself thrown out on your ass.
Jamming every table you sit down at is not a way to stay inconspicuous
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
"... but I think I'll be cashing out my chips before I leave the casino ..."
/ 18 28225&tid=158&tid=98&tid=17
Using RFID tags in Casinos was mentioned a while back, and one of the reasons why they wanted to use RFID tags, was to make sure people don't leave with the chips.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/09
but I think I'll be cashing out my chips before I leave the casino.
Why wouldn't you be doing this anyway? You can't play one casino's chips at another casino.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I believe they are all active devices. I recall a recent news story where all of the original EZ-Passes in the NE USA were failing because the batteries in them were dying.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
I think you'll find if you wander around a casino with a radio transmitter secxurity will want a quick chat.
That's like closing the barndoor after the barn's burned down!
Membership cards linked to multiple casinos, every square inch of every building under surveliance, and data mineing the likes of which the G'uvment can't compete with. Cashless video games that print out your winnings on a barcoded slip of paper...
If this has you concerned, RFID in your chips is the _least_ of your problems.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Seems to me it could be spoofed, but I Am Not An Expert. What if you have a small radio transmitter in your pocket to swamp the table's RFID transmitter? Maybe read the RFID at one table, and play it back later to spoof some other table?
Doing this in a place with more cameras than patrons, heavy security, a network of private detectives (Griffin Investigations), and the most sophisticated facial recognition packages around makes this a fools game at best.
If you value your kneecaps, don't pull this in a casino.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
if you dont sign up for a players card how can they track you? it's impossible.... not everyone has one of these, which you would swipe when you sit down and buy chips. when you swipe the card all the chips given to you could be tracked at that time since to have a players card you have to give the casino your personal info in order to get comps. if you dont have a card then they have no idea who those chips went to. this is a way players could get around the rfid tracking but wouldnt get any comps. useful for those card counters ;)
since i like my players card but not the rfid tracking i think i'll start carrying around my chips in tin foil in my pocket
always bet on black.
hugs and kisses,
Wesley Snipes
However, it also reads license plates directly if you don't have an RFID tag. One receives a bill in the mail (with a surcharge for not being "in" the system) at the end of the month.
Dunno about out of province drivers. I guess Canadian ones are tracked down and fined or jailed. (Americans probably just get a fist shaken at them, as they cross the border back into the U.S., thinking to themselves "nyeah, nyeah, nheah, nyeaaah, nyeah!).
Canuks complain about the cost of maintaining the bridge to Buffalo from the Canadian side. Yanks have the smarts to put a toll on their side of the bridge. Why did I have to be born north of the 49th and surrounded by pinko idiots? Sigh. (Insightful, no! Troll! But wait, insightful... Aw, screw it, I'll take Troll for -5 karma, Alex.).
You could've hired me.
1: EMP casino
2: ?
3: Profit
Actually, I have no idea if you could generate a pulse that would destroy all the RFID chips without messing up the rest of the electronics. But I still suspect an implausible Hollywood heist movie using this plot device is being planned as I type.
Slashdot - Mutual Assured Discussion
isn't the domestic doc called canis lupus familiaris nowadays?
Deending on RFID for counterfeit identification is a recipe for disaster because of this sceneraio. This leads more credence to the idea that this tech is simply to measure action at the tables. It could also be used to speed up the counting of chips, which would speed up and increase the accuracy of transactions at the cashier. Either of these reasons are more compelling than the counterfeiting issue, but don't generate as good of a PR image as the targeting of counterfeiters.
Oceans 13!!!!!!!
Unemployed geeks: Check out the Wynn Jobs link. You should find something in there...
In his classic Steal This Book (a fascinating read, now online for free) 60s activist Abbie Hoffman described the following way to get a free trip to Vegas. Many casinos (at least back then) offered free round trip airfare and a room for a weekend, even meals in some cases, but you had to buy like $500 in chips. These were specially marked chips that could not be cashed in, so you had to gamble them away. The trick he suggested was for whoever goes with you to buy an equal number of standard chips upon arrival, so you have $1000 between you, half marked and half not. Then you both sit at a roulette table and bet against each other; one person bets on black, the other bets on red, identical amounts. So you break even on every bet except when 00 comes up. The person with the marked chips bets only those chips. All payoffs are made in standard chips. When the marked chips have all been lost, the two of you should still have a total of approximately $1000 in standard chips. At that point you cash in and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
I'm sure they've thought of this, but doesn't the RFID standard require that every tag can be rendered inoperative with a simple kill command?
All it would take is one script kiddy running through a casino with a chip-killer to ruin everyone's day.
I worked as a cashier in a casino (that bills itself as the most popular riverboat casino in the world if anyone wants to figure out which one) for at total of 2 and 1/2 years and while I remember several instances of counterfeit money, I don't remember EVER seeing counterfeit chips. I have seen chips from other casinos, but not forged ones.
While I didn't work in Vegas, I am highly sceptical this happens. If they said it was to prevent employee theft, I would have an easier time beleiving it (although to be effective it would require every exit being covered, which would seemingly be cost prohibitive).
For counterfeiting chips to be effective, you would have to have a lot of chips, and prefereably a lot of high denomination chips. At least in the casino i worked in, surveillance knows who has the chips already so if someone they have never seen before walks in with even an ammount as small as $5000 in chips, there is a good chance they are going to know. Cashing in anything over $10,000 gets reported to the government anyway (again, unless Vegas is different, but I think that is part of RICO laws), so I don't see counterfeiting chips being effective when you can fake money ans spend it everywhere.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
CmdTaco has added comments to the parent post after mine. However, there is no clear distinction where my words end and his begin. Since they might be interpreted to be from me, and they don't represent my sentiments, please note: everything written beginning with the words, "Having stayed," does not belong to me. In email conversation, CmdTaco has said he didn't feel there would be any confusion since my words are italicized. In this case, I respectfully disagree. I would appreciate this post being modded up.
I can imagine high-tech pickpockets/muggers wandering through the casino, seeing whose pockets light up their hand-held RFID reader, and then following them out to the parking lot or what-have-you.
I wonder how long it will take until people will be able to make devices to scan people going out with chips, duplicate those chips' RFIDs, make fake chips with legit RFIDs(possibly through a system where you carry around ready made chips you just load with a new RFID), and cash in other people's winnings?
Now, I have no experience with this RFID technology... but if that system is entirely dependant on the RFID chips, and no other form of identification... chip duplication might become a problem(which could get the legit owners of the chips accused for making fake chips)...
Again, if it is even possible(which, I suspect, it will become some day... as with most technology)
"proof of authenticity" card found inside every Prada product you buy at the Prada store. And if you are one of the lucky ones to have bought something there before with an RFID card, next time you walk in to the store, the greeter (after glancing at his/hers palm device and reading your quick profile) will greet you by name and sometimes go the extra step and inform you in a metrosexual kind of tone of what they have in stock and might interest you in buying.
In NYC we call this top notch Customer Service.
Better comps would be a big plus... unless you're a high roller, the pit boss rarely pays enough attention to accurate track your betting, especially if you bet in an inconsistent manner at something like craps.
I suppose you could... but I think the dealer might notice that your homemade radio transmitter doesn't look like one of their chips and would be hesitant to take the bet.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
It's been tried a few times before in the RFID industry, but it's never been able to work. The reason that casino's want to track the chips is mainly to stop people stealing, hiding or moving chips while they're on the playing tables. No-one could ever guarantee all the chips would read though, so the system never took off. If they've found a way to do it, they would be able to sell the technology in a lot more places than casinos
gambling is a stupidity tax. Man it is depressing walking past a bank of zombies punishing themselves. Skinner's pigeons got nothing on the blue haired ladies.
Even if you are playing poker, the house is still a parasite. The rake is unbelievable. Maybe the rake buys you a clean game, but I kind of doubt it. The ethics of mobsters and corporations are no better than that of home game weasels. The only thing saving you is that the overhead of a fix is probably not worth the trouble. Still more do I doubt that a clean game with the rake is worth it: it puts the players in the position of fighting in a burning house.
Hmm...burning the House, not a bad idea. The indoor air quality probably wouldn't suffer. Vegas is the right place for resuming above ground nuclear testing. We could probably rent space to Iran and N. Korea.
> Having stayed pretty much everywhere else cool on the strip
The coolest Vegas places aren't on the strip. The middle class stays on the strip.
Casinos rate players on how much action they give a casino. The pit supervisor walks around to the various tables and looks, with his eyes, at how much money the big players are betting, to calculate how much the player is earning for free paybacks from the casino.
Clever betters routinely bump up their bets when they see "the boss" coming around to inspect their betting. By throwing out the bigger chips while you're being watched, you'll qualify for more comps than actually warranted.
RFID chips will tell the computers exactly how much money you're betting -- no more human interaction required! No gaming the system for more than you should actually get!
The really terrible thing is that they will soon (if they don't already) put the RFID chips on playing cards themselves. The computer-dealer on each blackjack table could instantly reshuffle the monster six-deck shoe when the cards in the shoe lean too much in favor of the players!
I don't have an issue with this since the chips are the property of the casino.
It's the same thing if they decided to put RFID tags in the towels.
The only thing I would be interested in, is full disclosure. Even if it's something I have to ask the manager about, the the manager would tell me, "Yes, the chips contain RFID tags, we use them when you cash in the chips to make sure they're legit."
What surprises me is that hotels haven't put RFID tags in their towels and charged you when you steal them!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Easy, keep them under your tinfoil hat.
What's to stop them from RFIDing the cards next? It would sure make things easier for the dealer. I bet you won't read about that on in the news.
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.........
That has the same expected payout as dumping the entire $500 on black and letting it sit there until it's gone. You're going to lose 2/34 of each bet you make. You can reduce the variance by dividing the money up into smaller chunks and letting each chunk sit until it's gone, but the expected payout remains the same.
Your best bet would be to find a game with better odds and do the same thing (only bet the marked chips). You could also minimize the number of times each chip is bet (since you lose 6% or so each bet) but the difference will not be very large for most games at $500.
Michael
Then that would be cool because we can carry around scanners that would help us read the cards without having to count it :)
Wow, looks like someones been watching a whole lot of Cowboy Bebop!
Yeah right - That fake detector is right next to the missing pulse detector on every EEs wish list...
ifilm is showing a banned superbowl commercial for the Wynn casino. The commercial is just him standing on top of his casino saying it's the first time he's put his name on one. Seems pretty harmless, anyone know why it was banned?
WARNING: Parent post contains obfuscated goatsecx! Mod down!
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/10/1 954245
I don't see the point of the activity. Maybe I just identify too closely with the long run. I don't expect to sit in a favorable cluster of events.
watching the wheel go around and seeing what happens - that's what turntables are for.
I don't think I'm risk-averse - if the odds were even, I'd probably throw down some dough. If they were in my favor, I'd play pretty seriously. I recognize that the house edge is pretty thin for some games, and you need to average over thousands of outcomes to realize the edge. I wouldn't put it all on red even if I got the 0 && 00.
>They will be able to track individual gabling habits, and from that, system usage.
First you track the individual gambling habits, then you get the system usage, then you get the power, THEN you get the women.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
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.
What a novel idea, cashing out your chips BEFORE leaving! I even heard they sometimes exchange money for them or something.
The Indian casino here in Minnesota has been using RFID tags in their players chips for quite a while. You place your bet in the circle at the blackjack table and the dealer hits a button on the table just before he starts dealing.
That button sends a radio pulse up through the bet circle and the casino records exactly how much was bet for each player each hand. If someone trys something sly like placing a $25 or $100 chip under their $5 bet after they have a winning hand, the Casino can detect the cheat immediately.
The primary reason they do this is for the Comp system. Back in the early 90's I was doing work for the Tropicanna Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. Back then the Casino Administrator, Doug Gomes estimated that they were losing $20 million a year from the loose comp system due to employees stating that their {insert friend/relative here} was a high-roller and played a lot at the {insert any table game here}, and then have the hotel buy the airplane ticket with the promise of big play that never happened.
Tracking play at the slots is automatic with your players card. At the tables, they have to see how much you bought in with, figure your average bet amount, and the length of time you're playing. Its a very imprecise system but it was the best they had, and it was ripe for abuse.
What this means is that if you really did lose thousands of dollars at the craps table, you're more likely to get that free room or meal.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
It would be easy for Blackjack. When it's the dealer's "turn", they activate a button by foot to record the player's chips on the table then record again after payout.
:)
Remember, these are "numbered" chips so you know exactly which chips the dealer has and which chips are on the table. You might not know if the player has chips in their pockets
I've done some development work on RFID-chip bet recognition for table games -- it's pretty neat stuff.
The word around the office is that many of the major local (Las Vegas) casinos will probably be upgrading within the next 2 or 3 years as they see RFID-chip technology maturing.
RFID chips have the promise to deliver very detailed, real-time reports about game performance, player profiles, and security alerts. The cost of re-racking is pretty small compared to the potential windfall of information the casino back-office can get. Within a couple of years, it will become a point of competition between the majors -- "the other guys have it, so we better get it too".
As always, the biggest threat comes through unintentional, or intentional compromise of the system. If these chips are all numbered that mens that when you walk through the door, the casino knows if you have a chip that is not in their database. (guards with guns) So the clear break point is the system that stores the IDs, or the guy that runs it. Since the system will probably be closed circuit, that's out without movie-tactics. Bribe the guy who runs the system to add a few IDs.... that's another loop. Then you and your good friends can go collect money when you like.
The only other option is to read people's chips when they leave the casino (if chips can leave the casino?) Then you dupe a bunch of chips from distributed readers you have snuck in public places and collect money.
if the chips can't leave the casino then it probably has to be an inside job, barring some clever hack(?).
Are RFID tags Tempest standard 'compliant'? Isn't there some movie-technology possibility to have surrepitously small readers? Anyone technically know why a door-sized antenna and decoder cannot operate in a person-sized unit?
.
-shpoffo
They'll put them on the cards as well!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
i submitted this story a week ago. darn you.
It seems to me one of the most obvious and simple uses would be to detect card counting at blackjack tables. At the moment they do this by watching how you change your bets. Dealers and pit bosses are trained to notice if your bets keep conveniently changing between 10, 20, and 40, for instance. With these new chips you could have a computer do it for you, and do a far better job. As it is you have to place the chips you are betting in a little circle on the table. All they have to do is put a reader under those circles and they can have a computer automatically track bets and look for suspicious patterns.
this casino sounds retarded. i'm def going to short wynn stock as soon as the casino opens.