Two reports from English courts this week have exposed negligence by surveillance operations at some UK casinos. As bean counters readily dispense with surveillance and security personnel relying more heavily on technology, stretched officers just go on automatic pilot and let the machines do the work, or lack of it, that ensures casino security and impacts greatly on the bottom line.

It appears that casino management has lost the notion of why cameras were installed first in casinos; the idea was that it should support casino security and not be the cornerstone of its security operations. Back in the early seventies, in varying tones of grey and snowy definition, the use of cameras in a casino operation was seen more as a deterrent than the means to catch the thief. This was done by gaming personnel on the casino floor and security's job was to process the result or chuck the beggar out of the premises.

When surveillance personnel were placed on the job of camera room work, the nature of the job did not enable people to convert tediousness into activity, and endless cups of coffee were not sufficient to raise them from lethargy. In this environment, autopilot set in at will and enough surveillance personnel just went through the motions when called upon to act by casino floor people.

The surveillance job was just a reaction to the floor action, and this reaction was mostly ineffective. Fortunately, the level of criminal activity in casinos was not at the level that is seen these days and undetected theft on the casino floor mainly passed as operating loss of hold percentage.

The so called professional gambler who cheated a casino in Southampton, on the south coast of England, out of some US $60,000 during a 15-hour gaming marathon session at an electronic roulette game, did so by working on "a technical fault which meant he could not lose." According to Southampton Crown Court, the gambler "opened a panel on the machine and operated switches inside to void games in which he had not placed a winning bet."

At the same court, casino personnel said that the gambler had been "caught after being seen nudging the machine with his knee on CCTV." By their own admission, the casino operators said that it took them the best part of two shifts to detect a man winning constantly on bets totaling around US $2,700 per spin.

If the casino management at this property should hold their head in shame, then so should casino operators in other properties where over three years, a card cheat "won about £3,000 (US $4,500) a night by marking the edges of cards with the pinhead which was hidden under a fingernail."

At London’s Southwark Crown Court, the foreign casino thief who as a Turkish national was jailed pending deportation from England, said that he had "hit casinos in London, Liverpool, Northampton and Manchester" bypassing casino security by using six false IDs.

So, it matters not whether a thief runs a scam over the course of one day or during a protracted 3-year period, the fact is that casino operations on autopilot will get hit come rain or shine. The lesson for casino operators and finance bean counters is that while expertly trained surveillance and security personnel could still go on autopilot, they remain an intrinsic Human Resources part of the business and dispensing with them will certainly affect the bottom line. As for casino floor management, going on autopilot is definitely the most direct route out of the business by means of a severe kick on the backside. (E-12.03.09)

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