Inside Asian Gaming

37 s digital technology continues to pervade casinos and their surrounding prop- erties, gaming operators are getting hip to the notion of deploying digital surveillance systems throughout every nook and cranny, both on the floor and in back of house opera- tions. More than other businesses, the gam- ing industry has been in the forefront of digi- tal surveillance, undeterred by its relatively high cost compared to analog systems.Given the stakes involved, the benefits in improved risk management far outweigh the costs. Digital systems allow video footage to be viewed immediately, which means bet- ter customer service. If a customer makes a claim that a dealer took his push bet, for in- stance, the floor manager will call the surveil- lance room, which immediately reviews the footage to see what happened. In an analog world, it would be necessary to pull the tape and spend several minutes, maybe even an hour, going through and searching for the specific incident. There’s also greater flexibility.With digital, operators have the ability to choose combi- nations of monitors to view and display them all on one screen. They can drag a dozen or more cameras into the viewer at one time, group them all together, and play back all at the same time; managers can look at an en- tire section of the casino floor and drag and drop cameras at will. IP video surveillance, technology that of- fers real-time delivery of video and still imag- es via a LAN or the Internet, is also enhancing surveillance operations at casino properties. Access to recorded video is nearly instanta- neous, enabling security personnel to make quick and efficient decisions about how to respond to specific incidents. IP technology also makes possible the use of video con- tent analysis, which provides an automated analysis of the video at the camera level. And as manufacturers are making devices, such as cameras and encoders, more intelligent, only the video containing useful segments is transmitted back to operators. So when the software detects an event that meets certain criteria, such as an abandoned object, only the video containing that event needs to be viewed by surveillance. One of the overriding themes in secu- rity today is being able to derive a return on investment on a security system. “While ROI has not traditionally been a security practitioner’s concern, security has become accountable to business metrics,” said Leon Chlimper, vice president of systems at Bosch Security Systems. IP video technology with video content analysis can also be used in other areas of a casino property for functions that provide benefits outside the traditional realm of se- curity over gaming operations. A scheduled truck delivery of four pallets of supplies can be verified by the surveillance system at the loading dock by using a counting feature in VCA. Or, a costly theft of hotel linens can be discovered, further adding to the return on investment of the surveillance system. “With the advent of IP technology, many features of today’s systems can be used for functions outside of security—the unattend- ed delivery truck or counting people as they enter the casino, capabilities that improve operations and add to the value of the sys- tem,” said Chlimper. In the case of IP video,many casinos have a very substantial analog camera infrastruc- ture that remains completely viable. Many casinos are opting for a hybrid solution, re- taining the cameras and the matrix switcher, for example, while adding encoders and a storage solution to take advantage of the conveniences digital recording has to offer. Intelligent design Moving toward a digital infrastructure can be costly. “Some casinos use 1,000 cameras or more, which can cost several thousand dollars each,” said Kostas Mel- los, sales leader of enterprise video at GE Security. “Altogether, including storage, per-channel video costs can be as high as US$5,000-6,000.” Given those parameters, security person- nel are extremely picky about choosing tech- nology providers. Typically, purchasing deci- sions are made by a committee composed of senior execs, which has a checklist of require- ments.“The committee will look for whether integrators have the capability to maintain systems, and whether the technology is state of the art,”Mellos said. Casinos being built from scratch, such as Atlantis Cove Resort, have the opportunity to leapfrog competitors by installing state- of-the-art technology. Located in Nassau, Ba- hamas, Atlantis Cove tapped North American Video to serve as systems integrator, utilizing the capabilities of the MDI Unified Technol- ogy Platform as its security command and control solution. “The MDI solution was specifically re- quested by the Atlantis security team based on its capabilities as a unified system,” said Cyndi Freschi, president of North American Video. “The open architecture customiza- tion capability of the MDI system is beyond that of most typical integrated software and is able to accomplish security requirements that no other system that we have worked with can meet.” The MDI system is currently control- ling over one thousand edge devices on the Atlantis project including end points on slot machine doors, retail stores and secure counting rooms to name a few.The system is integrated with North American Video’s line of video surveillance products and utilizes their consoles, power supplies, workstations and racks. 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