The Tech Used to Catch Vegas Cheats

Black Jack writes "Interesting piece on silicon.com about the technology used in Vegas for catching the cheats. It goes into detail on a number of things from facial recognition and RFID to some CIA-developed systems for background checking staff. Surprised they're so open about what they do! ...or is this just the stuff they admit to?"

Comments

Making Your Own Tokens

[MBCook]

There was a special about a month ago on Discover or one of those channels about this guy who made his own tokens for use in casinos and how he went about doing it, including having to figure out the right metal combinations, making the dies, getting giant press machines to form them, and everything. It was facinating. The way they finally caught him was the counts of tokens would come out high (they should have 100 $50 tokens at the end of the day, they'd have 120). Then from that they were able to go find him (eventually spotted him using them in a slot machine, and when the machine didn't like a token he put in, he just kept going where anyone else would complain LOUDLY about it).

Facinating to watch.

Internet Casinos

[Eightyford]

I'd like to know what kind of technology is used to catch cheaters on internet Casinos. Sites like Pokerstars must have some pretty complex systems in place to catch cheaters, as it seems so easy to cheat at first sight. I mean, how hard would it be to have your friends play at the same table as you while on a conference call with them? Maybe I'll try that right now actually...

RFID's a great idea

[dlt074]

back when i worked in a casino i had this guy buy in for a couple hundred bucks on a crap game. i was handing the money into the box person and was joking that the money looked fake. he thought i was serious and so looked at it a little more then i had. turns out it was counterfeit and security pulled the guy off the game. turns out after talking to him and running back the tape, he was passed the bogus money from our our cash cage!

the RFID in the chips is a good idea. we once had some bogus 100's come in one afternoon and everyone knew about them but i was still finding them a day later in "clean" banks. if they were all RFID'd you could scan a whole bank and see if it matches what you have down on paper as the proper amount. short a few 100 then there must be some bogus chips in there someplace better take a good long look.

as far as the cheating goes. the only place it's even worth trying is on a crap game with two of the dealers in on it. when the stick person is watching the dealer who's in on it, that's when you pass off a stack of chips. nothing too high for you might call attention, maybe $100.00.you only do a few hundred a night on a BUSY game other wise they will spot you quick, greed is bad. craps is a very verbal game, unlike BJ where everything is done with hand gestures and easy for servailance to watch. in the years that i dealt craps never did servailance call down and ask about a payout we made or about any of the action on the game. it moves too fast and is too verbal for them to know what's going on. if you have a busy game and no box person or floor watching, you could very easy hand off a "payout" that was not legit and nobody would ask or care. there were many many times where i would book a bet verbaly without seeing the actual money on the table and the dice would roll and the person would either win or lose and they would payup or i'd pay them and there was NO money any where to be seen before that moment for the camera. which is why you are always nice to the crap dealer in front of you and watch what you joke around about, i've booked bets that people were joking about, at that point they pay up or they get escorted out of the casino. that was always my favorite way to get rid of people that pissed me off.