We will be sharing more conference highlights over the next few weeks. At the end of the month we head to G2E Asia in Macau to gain some insight from the gaming boom taking place in Asia.

With one day to go before the World Game Protection Conference, I began reflecting on some comments made from last year’s conference. One comment that I kept an eye on as I traveled around was the “lack of card control in many casinos“. I was surprised to hear at the conference last year that this is a problem at “many casinos”; and true it is!

Once again, I see that card control is on the agenda and this time at the “Surveillance Directors Meeting” – A 4 hour “closed-door” information & intelligence sharing meeting hosted by Darrin Hoke. Seems to still be a problem …

As a result, CHEETEYE’s Electronic Card Control module will be one of our featured demos at this week’s World Game Protection Expo. If you need to plug this hole at your casino and you’re at the The M Resort in Vegas, pop around and we’ll lead you through a brief demo. This casino software management tool applies strict card control using biometric enabled work flow processes that ensure accountability every step of the way. Strict accountability measures cause people to think twice about cheating and are the first and most important step towards protecting with insight.

Other new features that will be available in our Tables Portal:

• simplified break list so that supervisors spend less time recording and more time observing
• enhanced staff assessment tools to make the appraisal process more efficient and meaningful

The man behind this new development is our senior software engineer, Danie Kritzinger. Danie’s an iron man and the picture below was captured at a recent iron man event. Being an iron man requires dedication and passion, something Danie brings to software development as well. Thanks Danie for your dedication and passion!

Stay ahead of the pack Coyote Valley!

Whether you’re an inspector on the move and need to manage from an iPad …

Or an auditor needing quick access to reliable information, CHEETEYE Fills & Credits is as flexible as you need it to be …

Casino operations management tools like this help casinos protect themselves from the damaging effects of negligence and fraud by ensuring that policies and procedures are strictly followed. Failing to keep up can mean failing to make money.

It seems to be the month for tables management as our electronic tables roster is receiving some exciting changes at the same time. More on that in the next few days. Until then, keep “protecting with insight”.

After doing some research and talking to users of our collaboration tools, I found that the top 2 reasons for the need of collaboration software in the casino industry are:

1. Accountability – Operational hours of casinos are not the same as traditional business. Keeping a handle on compliance becomes difficult when an operation is “always on”. Hence the need for smart software that helps compliance and surveillance collaborate by using work flow processes to hold departments accountable when standard operating procedures (Casino SOP) are broken.
2. Performance management – The workplace is one of the most feedback-deprived places in modern life and casinos need to be especially aware of this. Lack of feedback in casinos results in policies and procedures not being strictly followed, which leaves them unprotected from the damaging effects of negligence and fraud both by external sources and an organization’s own staff. Effective performance management requires collaboration. According to “HRExaminer: Looking Ahead: 2012 Forecasts”, traditional performance management software based on annual and quarterly reviews, “miss the whole rhythm of the business.” They expect to see systems that allow instantaneous evaluation and they expect to see case studies that demonstrate the power of “always on” performance evaluation. Below is a screen shot from CHEETEYE’s “always on” performance management” module.

Make sure you have Casino SOP tools in place to master your “always on” environment so that you don’t feel like the drained energizer bunny at the end of the year. Have a great 2012!

How do I become an information designer? Start with what you have and most people have excel, which is a useful information design tool. Get to know excel well by purchasing an easy to read book like “Excel for dummies”. Getting your data into an electronic tool is absolutely essential. Once you have your data in an electronic tool like excel, you can begin to visualize your data. When you visualize information, you start to be able to see the patterns and connections that matter. It allows your readers to focus on what really matters and you provide a solution to this sense of information overload and data glut that we’re all suffering from. Take the following example; a spread sheet of armed forces and defense budgets (courtesy of Information is beautiful) :

At first glance, you might be drawn to the huge US defense budget and formulate the following view in your mind:

Or, you might dig deeper and form more interesting connections with the data. The diagram above can easily depict the US as an aggressive, war-mongering military machine. However, it doesn’t seem fair to not factor in the wealth of a country when assessing its military budget. When you take military budgets as a proportion of each country’s GDP, a very different picture emerges.

The US is suddenly knocked down into 8th place by such nations as Jordan, Burundi and Georgia. Why are these other nations spending so much on their military? Time to dig deeper …

CheetEye information design tools provide users with the ability to extract useful casino data into tools like excel and our own propriety tools, so that users can enter the world of information design. Information designers are in hot demand as they are the problem solvers. Take some small steps and start designing. You could become the most valuable asset at your casino!

Thanks for designing great products Steve Jobs. You’ve left a design legacy!

CheetEye takes to the skies today bringing “Trigger” to 5 States in the USA. Starting out in California, the home of smart technology, casino professionals will come face to face with technology that’s casting a wide net of casino protection …

• Collect data from disparate systems
• Provide a secure, user friendly interface to access the data
• Alert management to irregularities based on a set of rules
• Provide a wide range of reports and reporting tools

As a beach running addict, I’ll complete this blog from the beach:

Relying on the floor to keep surveillance informed can be disastrous. Tracking threshold transactions should not be left to human power but computer power. I’m always amazed at the intelligence of social media software to connect me with the right people. The smart software is merely using the “multi-tasking” power of the computer.

Below is an example of a configuration screen in CheetEye to get electronic threshold transaction alerts. Simple but effective!

Stay smart