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!

Comments

multiple uses

[orange_6]

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 :)

Re:Detection range much longer

[kenh]

The RFID tags used on cars are much larger than any chip I've ever seen in a casino - and there are good reasons they are as big as they are - they need to absorb enough energy to send the signal back to the detector/antenna 10-15 feet away...

Also, casinos already know where the players are, they don't need to track them based on chip movement...

I think the real application will be the action at the table (a computer could watch the volume of betting and act as a virtual pit boss, signalling when the action is getting heavy/slacking off) and in the cashier (count and verify chips quickly). I also wonder if they will also use sensors in the doorways to try and keep their chips in their casino, and know when someone comes in with chips from another casino...

Ken

Re:What happens when the RFID chip dies?

[TheCarp]

what will be interesting is to see how they work this new feature into their procedures.

As it is now, I could easily (assuming I could have good counterfits made that were not distinguishable from normal chips in some simple manner) bring fake chips into a casino and use them... the hard part is getting good fakes and putting them into your stacks without arising suspicion.

Remember there are cameras and various forms of security all over the place.

So lets say I do make it to the table with stacks of fairly good counterfit chips. Lets say they are exact minus the RFID tag. OK, so my normal course of action is to go to the poker table, but I could go anywhere.

My goal here is not to make money, but to break even. I can't risk taking fake chips to the cashier, because thats where its very likely to get caught and if they have and RFID, they will definitly be looking for missing chips.
(ie they will want to wave my rack of 500 chips over the detector and get exactly 500 valid unique rfid signatures right?)

So I need to exchange all or at least most (if I have 1 or 2 fakes in a set of 500 chips, its going to be easy to claim I won them at a table and they wont care, but if I have a large number, rest assured they will have some questions for me)

Preferably I want these chips going into other people's stacks rather than the dealers. So my best strategy is to fake $5 chips, because they don't use $5 chips in the rake usually, and never use one in a situation where the dealer will use it to make change... this isn't too hard.

Now play a few rounds of poker and you see I have a problem. How do I keep fakes and reals seprate? If my method of getting them to the table is sound (notice I am ignoring this aspect, and with good reason, will get to that) then its easy to start out with a mix of fakes and reals that I can identify and nobody else can by sight.

Each time I win a pot, I get my chips back, plus other peoples, and note, between rounds of betting, the dealer splashes the pot. so I can't easily keep my fakes seprate.

ALl in all the whole thing will work for a little while, but will quickly break down.

Best I can come up with is leave with $500 in real chips, just play to break even, then toss the chips in a backpack and leave. people do this all the time, leave withthe chips to come back later....

Then come back with them racked in the backpack, but with ALL my chips in the backpack (so security doesn't become supiscous if they see me take $500 in chips out of my backpack when the door mounted detectors only registered $100)

Then I play and try to keep the chips seprate.... leave again with all the chips... separate on my own time, and come back with the real chips only.

But by this time they have realised that I am the only person at my table that never cashed in, and everyone else had bogus chips...

Thats what the casinos have, defense in depth. Sure you can pull off a little scam here and there, but by the time it amounts to much, they have put 2 and 2 together.

All they have to do is set the bar high enough that you can't scam enough to make it worth risking. Which is why this will eliminate any worries about fake chips.

The real scams are collusion on the poker table and card counting on black jack... and marking cards etc. (tho I think card counting is bullshit, its not the players fault that he can remember things and do math... its the houses fault for using dealer shoes rather than shuffling every time)

Frankly if you want to make money at the casino do what my roomates and I do... become good at poker. You will make money any time you play against people that take bigger risks than you do over time. It is not hard to become disciplined enough to play better than 90% of the poker players out there.

-Steve

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

[HarvardAce]

What would it be worth to a casino's marketing department to know which path certain groups customers walk after losing all their chips

If you lost all your chips, how are they going to track you? Then again, I always make it a point to keep a $1 chip as a souvenir, so maybe they could bank on that.