Category Archives: Dataveillance

Dataveillance

3 advantages of trigger based data monitoring

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I was shocked recently when I received my latest cell phone bill to see that my data charges were 10 times my normal average. I do a lot of international traveling and find it a hassle to constantly change SIM cards so I rely on my international roaming. Apparently the reason for the sharp increase was as a result of my switch from BlackBerry to the iPhone which is data hungry.

My first question to the cellular company was why their system did not alert me to the significant increase in data usage? We provide trigger based monitoring across the CHEETEYE casino protection software suite and have just made a significant upgrade to the trigger service, so the benefits of trigger based monitoring were still fresh in mind. “Trigger based monitoring” is a term given to a feature in software that provides users with alerts in the form of an email, text or phone call if a risk has been identified. I know what’s available in today’s world of trigger based monitoring so I’m surprised to still be waiting for an answer from this cellular network giant. Maybe trigger based monitoring will reduce their giant profits?

We’re living in a digital age with access to vast amounts of information. Trigger based monitoring is essential in order to benefit from where we are in history. Below are some benefits identified from a poll on trigger based monitoring for casino protection:

  • Administration automation – surveillance often requires feedback on standard operating procedures (SOP) that have been broken. Once the SOP has been identified and the applicable department notified, trigger based monitoring eliminates the need for surveillance to waste time following up if no feedback has been provided. 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.
  • Proactive observation – Gaming triggers such as potential collusion help surveillance be more proactive in their observation e.g. an alert notifying surveillance of the arrival of a guest involved in possible collusion helps surveillance focus on a “hot area” rather than relying on luck.
  • Solved investigations – Incidents are often left in a “pending state” awaiting further investigation. Being able to alert managers of incidents in a “pending state” can help them follow up on investigators that could be dragging their heals.

Smart phones need smart networks. In the meantime we will focus on developing smart software to help casinos protect with insight.

Dataveillance

New key system improves casino protection

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We’re only into the third month of the year and we have as many integration projects completed. Integrating disparate systems within a casino is what we love doing and that’s one of the things our clients love about us.

I want to make particular mention of our recent key cabinet integration with Key Systems Inc in New York as they are a great team. The level of integration has been phenomenal and it’s exciting to see two companies work together so openly for the benefit of casino protection. Keys will always be an important inventory item within casinos and our goal was to improve the monitoring process when it comes to key usage. An important key in the wrong hands can be disastrous.

My two favorite features from the Key System integration, include:

  • No need for additional access requirements. CHEETEYE already integrates into the HR system so there is no need to maintain a separate staff user profile in the Key System i.e key usage rights are added to the CHEETEYE staff profile.
  • Improved surveillance monitoring. As a result of key usage being added to a CHEETEYE staff profile, discrepancies that often exist between security and surveillance are now eliminated e.g. When an important key is checked out, the key system creates an automatic surveillance log and notifies surveillance.

To see how we’re helping casinos integrate disparate systems to improve casino protection, visit us at booth 314 at NIGA next week.

Dataveillance

How CHEETEYE is preventing your house from being burnt down

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After feeling the heat last year, we decided to come to the rescue of our clients who are being affected by the plague of point of sale (POS) fraud. We had the building blocks with Trigger and Tracker but just needed to add the POS integration. We approached Micros as a starter, signed an agreement with them and went full steam ahead or should I say, we turned on the taps to put this fire of POS fraud out.

We’re identifying POS fraud by collecting transactional data from the POS system and running the data against our POS fraud algorithms. Some of the top POS scams that can be identified are:

  • Working with an open till
  • Line item voids
  • Comparing average transaction revenues
  • Staff using the POS longer than their shift requires or activity when not on duty
  • Comparing discounts

I’m looking forward to reading “How to Burn Down the House”, to get further insight into the scams that are out there. One of the authors will also be speaking at the World Game Protection conference next year, so “things can only get better”!

Water is a basic need so we’ve made sure this solution is cost effective and makes you sleep better!

Dataveillance

Does your surveillance department make this mistake?

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The London 2012 Olympics has been a great success and it’s been a huge privilege to experience some of the many exciting moments. An all time highlight for me was watching Mohamed Farah achieve the double for Great Britain and experiencing the sound of thousands of British fans cheering their wonder boy down the final straight. Truly exhilarating! We all love to achieve and as I reflect on these Games, I realize that these athletes have achieved because they’ve been focused for years towards the London Olympics.

The importance of staying focused on the core of your business has never been more important than now as we get bombarded with more and more distractions. I know it’s easier said than done but if you want to be the best you have to learn from the best and look no further than the Olympics. A friend and mentor of mine who is the founder of a successful multi-million dollar business openly admits that he is useless at multi-tasking. In fact, a British study showed that a distracted staff member suffers a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana!

Casino surveillance staff can potentially be very distracted. I’ve been in surveillance rooms where the phone never stops ringing! Surveillance are tasked by casino owners to focus on protecting their assets and when they lose that focus, casinos become vulnerable. As more casinos look to implement dataveillance processes to assist with protection efforts, it’s important not to lose focus on the task at hand. Make sure your software provider handles all things technical so that you can focus on protecting.

The Olympic flame may have been extinguished and the athletes heading home. However, there’s a new bunch of future world beaters who will be focusing their efforts towards the next Olympics in Rio (1452 days to go). There’s also a bunch of surveillance professionals doing dataveillance the right way. Keep up the great work, stay focused and you will be rewarded!

Dataveillance

Can You Recognize the Early Warning Sign of Dealer Collusion?

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I never forget a statement Darrin Hoke made at the first World Game Protection show I attended, “The greatest gaming scheme is on the go right now. No-one knows about it except the crooks”. Dealer and player collusion is on the go right now in many casinos around the world and most of it is going unnoticed by casino protection professionals. Large winnings will always be scrutinized but it’s the small regular transactions that rarely get followed and over time add up to be significant casino losses. Unless, however, you have systems in place to analyze casino data over a period of time to reveal associations that can’t be seen easily.

A new version of our collusion identification tools were released today in an effort to make the user experience more user friendly. However, this affective casino protection tool reminded me of the “Silent Killer, Drone Aircraft”, so affectively used by the U.S. Army. Our casino collusion killer app is a must have for any casino protection professional who wants to prove the value of surveillance to their organization.

Dataveillance

Get Rid of Title 31 Non-Compliance Once and for All

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Today marks the end of paper SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) and CTR (Currency Transaction Report) filings! FinCEN requires that these forms be electronically filed and will no longer accept paper filings. Non-compliance will result in fines that could number in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

CHEETEYE engineers have been working around the clock to make sure that our users are in compliance with the new FinCEN title 31 requirements. In addition, our users will benefit from the software automation that has been built into the software to handle many of the title 31 changes that require extensive data entry on the BSA site. Take a preview of our user friendly title 31 software tool!

If you want to get rid of title 31 non-compliance once and for all, contact us at: 720-221-6915 or info@cheeteye.com

Dataveillance

Lessons from Asia

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I’ve recently returned from G2E Asia in Macau and thoroughly enjoyed my Asian experience. From the setting up of our stand to the final day of sightseeing in Hong Kong, I was reminded of some core values. We’ve hired a plasma screen at each show we’ve attended this year and it was great to receive good value for money this time. Yes, just a plasma screen but the attention to detail in setting it up impressed me. They observed my need and cared about it. As more software providers move towards the “software as a service” model, the emphasis can now, more so than ever, be on service.

I was fortunate to sneak in a day of sightseeing in Hong Kong with a family friend. Alan (see below) is a school friend of my dads who arrived in Hong Kong with a backpack. Alan had studied to be an architect and arrived in Hong Kong to create a new life for himself. Today he is a multi-millionaire and I had the privilege of spending the day with this most influential man. His advice to us as casino software providers was extremely valuable. His parting words to me as he dropped me off at the airport were, “make sure you service your clients well”. I’ve returned from Asia more determined to never to lose the “service” in the “software” at CHEETEYE! Thanks Alan and Bell Yeung from AV Promotions!

Dataveillance

Another Collusion Killer added to CHEETEYE

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A client of ours swears by his tip report. He’s a wily old character and his reasoning caught my attention. It’s a simple excel spread sheet, but once again, it’s disconnected valuable data. Not for long though, as next month he will be reading his tip report through a CHEETEYE interface. What’s more exciting is that this valuable data will no longer be disconnected but immediately integrated into our collusion report; so I’m sure his first port of call will soon be our collusion report. Another knockout blow to casino collusion!

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!

Dataveillance

Smart Surveillance: Learning from Steve Jobs

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Steve Jobs was a great designer. From the Macintosh to the iPad, the products he designed have provided users around the world with a much needed improved technology experience. Design is about solving problems and as we continue our smart surveillance series, it’s time to look at the role of “Information Designer”. From information overload and saturation to break down in trust and skepticism, casinos need information designers to solve the numerous information problems we have at casinos.

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!