Casino security: How these video surveillance solutions can benefit casinos

Video surveillance plays a key role in casinos. From detecting suspicious activities to providing business insights, video surveillance makes casinos more secure, efficient and guest-friendly. Needless to say, cameras and video analytics are central to video surveillance. This article takes a closer look at how casinos can benefit from them.
 

Cameras

 
Cameras are the soul of video surveillance systems. To achieve greater security and efficiency, casino operators rely on different types of cameras, which are summarized as follows.
 

Fixed

 
Fixed cameras include dome, bullet and box cameras and can be useful in casinos. “Being dome or bullet style cameras, these are used excessively on the gaming floor and back of house. The camera would normally have a dedicated purpose. The purpose would be to provide a general view of an area or to provide images with a high enough resolution so that persons or cards or chips can be recognized on a table,” said Erasmus Smit, Senior Enterprise Solutions Manager at Dallmeier.
 

PTZs

 
PTZ cameras can pan, tilt and zoom and have pros and cons for casinos. “The biggest advantage is the optical zoom factor. An operator can zoom in on an object from a distance and get exceptional images of chips or cards on the table. A person can be followed/tracked in an area with good quality and in most cases from only one camera,” Smit said.
 
“The disadvantage of this technology is that a PTZ can only look in one direction at a time. It can also only be controlled by one person at a time and only in live mode. It is not possible to go back one hour and look in another direction,” Smit added. “Every casino operator knows the answer to the question, ‘do we have footage of that event?’ Nine times out of ten the answer is ‘no, the camera was looking in a different direction.’”
 

360-degree

 
360-degree cameras, also known as fisheyes, are extremely effective in covering wide areas such as casinos. They provide panoramic views with just one lens, sparing casino operators the need to install multiple cameras – a complex and costly proposition.
 
“The more cameras you have on the floor the more complex it becomes for operators to know which camera is the best to choose and how long it takes to compile usable footage when conducting an investigation. Many operational manhours are lost in the time it takes for operators to collect the correct footage of an incident due to the high number of cameras in a system and the dedicated views that each camera normally has,” Smit said, adding 360-degree cameras like the ones offered by Dallmeier can come in handy in this regard.
 
“A prime example of technology that can provide seamless coverage is the Panomera W8. This camera offers 360° viewing in both live and playback. Most importantly, the same quality and clarity you get in live is also available in playback, meaning you can go back in time and pan, tilt and zoom in any direction, which is impossible with any PTZ camera,” Smit said. “Another benefit is that multiple operators can view the camera at the same time, each looking in a different direction. The time it takes to gather footage for an investigation is also drastically reduced, as only one or two cameras are needed instead of 10 to 20 individual sensor views.”
 

Video analytics and AI

 
Video analytics are important in casino settings. They are first and foremost used for security purposes. Facial recognition, for example, can identify blacklisted people or known cheaters. Behavioral analysis can identify suspicious behavior such as loitering.
 
Aside from security, analytics and AI can also provide business intelligence that helps casino operators achieve greater efficiency and deliver a better guest experience.
 
“In the competitive global casinos market there is no doubt that deep learning AI analytics can give operators a competitive advantage by providing actionable insights to drive operational efficiency. For example, analytics can help managers decide how to place and utilize staff depending on people counting, dwell time, or queues for specific gaming tables or bars and restaurants, as well as looking at how to adapt dead zones so that floor space is full optimized,” said Koray Ozyildirim, Country Manager for IDIS Türkiye.
 
“Other highly beneficial AI video tools for casino applications include people counting and occupancy monitoring, with analytics targeted at the casino entrances making it easier to manage peaks and troughs in activity with the right level of staffing thanks to automatic alerts to duty managers,” he added.