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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....
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.
"WHAT? I just got it from the blackjack table over there!"
"Remain calm. Casino security will be with you shortly."
In other words.... PWN3D!
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
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.
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?
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
1. You don't need a friend. In roulette, you bet against the house - each player plays independently.
2. It's not a free weekend, but it is cheap.
3. You take your $500. Bet $13 each on 0 and 00. Bet $237 each on red and black (or odd and even, or any other 2:1 action). If 0 or 00 comes up, you get $468. If either red or black comes up, you get $474. Thus, your weekend costs you either $26 or $32. Of course, if you feel lucky, you can omit the 0 and 00 bets and simply bet $250 on red and black. The house then has a 5% chance of busting you completely, but you have a 94% chance of having a free weekend. Either way, you get paid in live chips, and can cash them in immediately.
4. In addition to the straight monetary costs, the hotel gets to make whatever interest it can having had hold of your money (usually) for a (sometimes lengthy) period of time in advance. And, of course, you run the relatively small risk of getting mugged with your $500 (or less) between the casino and your bank.
5. I haven't been to Nevada (I play poker, so I don't have to leave California) in a long time, but I recall hearing about such offers at least as late as the '80s, so it's possible it still goes on.
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.
"If you want to fiddle with RFID chips, stick to Wal-Mart's."
But that doesn't give you the opportunity to schmooze with a big guy named Vito: