Category Archives: Dataveillance

Doing dataveillance

Traditionally, casinos have been protected by surveillance systems which use cameras to watch activities taking place on a property. However, due to the ever increasing use of electronic systems to control casino processes, there are a lot of fraudulent activities taking place that cannot be seen with the eye. The fraud is taking place at the data level and hence, the surveillance industry has coined the term “dataveillance”. “Dataveillance” is the ability to:

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

Smart Surveillance: Tracking Big Winners

Some organizations are now mandating investigation after a player wins a certain amount. Senior management like to know that surveillance is aware and have investigated large casino losses. The problem is surveillance usually don’t get the info until the player is on a plane and on the way home. Another problem is that during a players trip, info can easily get lost in the system.

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

Smart Surveillance: The New Mousetrap

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. That’s kind of where we are today with casino protection. Table games have increased and placed an ever increasing pressure on surveillance observers. It’s time to break that mold and build a better mousetrap. True Innovation.

Last week we had the privilege of interviewing Willy Allison (President, World Game Protection) and Ron Buono (Executive Director Surveillance, MGM Grand) regarding a concept called “Surveillance Triggers”. “Surveillance Triggers” are software tools that interface with any casino table game player rating/marketing system and constantly “scan” the system for potential irregularities. An alert system is in place that notifies management when players get into the “red zone”.

Types of triggers include:

  1. Being alerted to wins outside of 3 standard deviations for a players trip
  2. Did a players average wager increase since past trips?
  3. Are the majority of the players rating being conducted by the same floor supervisor?
  4. Comparing play to other ratings which were occurring on the same game, same time
  5. Average bet on winning plays vs average bets on losing plays
  6. Comparing maximum bet to credit limit
  7. When a player has exceeded a (user defined) win threshold for a trip

(We will elaborate on each trigger as the “smart surveillance” series continues)

Willy’s top 3 triggers:

  1. When a player has exceeded a (user defined) win threshold for a trip
  2. Are the majority of the players rating being conducted by the same floor supervisor?
  3. Being alerted to wins outside of 3 standard deviations for a players trip

Ron’s top 3 triggers:

  1. Being alerted to wins outside of 3 standard deviations for a players trip
  2. Did a players average wager increase since past trips?
  3. Comparing play to other ratings which were occurring on the same game, same time

What would your top 3 triggers be?

Coyote Valley Casino Protects with Insight

Bill Zender made the following comment on our previous blog site regarding casino game protection: “A casino collusion report will be a huge help for casino and surveillance executives investigating suspicious table play. At this present time I’m involved with a situation regarding excessive wins in baccarat. It would be extremely helpful if I had the customer/table/dealer/supervisor information available at my fingertips. Being able to run a quick correlation between the customer and floor supervisor would greatly speed up my elimination process, and allow me more time to conduct surveillance reviews.”

Coyote Valley Casino in California have recently acquired CheetEye and have access to just the kind of information Zender mentions above. Trey Henson, Compliance & Risk Manager at Coyote Valley had the following to say about the collusion report in CheetEye: “This is the best casino game protection software I know about. You guys should give yourself pat on the back. Well done!”

For a live demo of our casino collusion tools, send us an email at info@cheeteye.com with “Casino Game Protection” as your subject.

Keep protecting with insight Coyote Valley!

Surveillance extinction – Time to evolve

Gavin Michael, global managing director for R&D and alliances at Accenture, was recently quoted saying “we are evolving into a world where quantity, processing speeds and distribution of data will make us see the world through a data lens”.

Surveillance departments that do not evolve towards “data lenses” face extinction by becoming irrelevant. Casino surveillance will always be heavily reliant on the traditional camera lens but even that has become another source to the new lens on the block; the data lens. In the world of surveillance and casino protection, the data lens is referred to as dataveillance. Here are 3 steps to get you onto the evolving path:

  • Get to know your data sources

Getting to know the various data sources in your casino requires you to develop a great relationship with your IT manager and put your detective hat on. Data floods into a casino on a daily basis and it’s the job of surveillance to tap into those vast resources of insight.

  • Setup an electronic recording portal

Surveillance managers and directors should be on an endless quest to remove paper trails. Without an intelligent electronic recording system it’s highly unlikely that your dataveillance endeavors will succeed.

  • Integrate

Once you’ve identified data sources of interest and you have an electronic recording portal in place, work with your IT department or software vendor to integrate your portal with those data sources so that you can begin extracting the insight. Various tools are available to analyze the relationships that exist between the various data sources. CheetEye was originally know as ICOS (Integrated Casino Operation System) because we knew from the beginning that a stand-alone system would be of no use in the world of dataveillance.

Traditional casino protection is dead. Happy evolving!

Our Surveillance Dream

A keynote address must have keys and that’s what I’m looking forward to sharing at my upcoming keynotes. Mark Zuckerburg had a dream of connecting people with the right people all over the world and he’s been very successful at it. We had a dream 5 years ago of helping surveillance departments connect their data to protect with insight and we’ve helped many succeed.

We have not stopped dreaming and as a result, the CheetEye has matured and he’s running faster! My keynotes will be revealing the insides of the latest version of CheetEye, codenamed “SurveillanceBook” – the mother of all surveillance connectors! Don’t stop dreaming for your for your surveillance department!

The most successful surveillance manager in 2011


According to research done by Fast Company magazine, “Coke are metering their water use with such precision. They’re doing it because they want to use less water, because they think they may soon have no choice, and because they’ve discovered that simply measuring water use quickly leads to managing it better.” They’re applying dataveillance to their business, not because it’s a nice to have but out of necessity.

It’s not only Coca Cola that are measuring their data and managing things better. Successful companies like IBM, GE and Wal-Mart are doing the same. “Every day I wake up and ask, ‘how can I flow data better, manage data better, analyse data better?” says Rollin Ford, the CIO of Wal-Mart. Successful executives like Mr Ford acknowledge that there is an “industrial revolution of data” taking place and it’s the first thing on their minds when they wake up. The Economist this time last year reported that “The data-centred economy is just nascent”. What’s been on your mind for the past 12 months? Is it going to make you the most successful surveillance manager this year?

Red Queen Alert – What casinos can learn from war

In biology, the Red Queen hypothesis is that predators and prey are in constant competition that leads to a period of inactivity, as each adaptation by one is countered by an adaptation by the other. Your casino might be in a “period of inactivity” but make sure you have a large red queen card mounted on your wall as a reminder that you are the prey!

Lewis Fry Richardson, a British scientist spent 7 years gathering data on wars. The Economist reports that amongst his interesting findings was that “the link between the severity and frequency of conflicts follows a smooth curve, known as a power law. One consequence is that extreme events such as the world wars do not appear to be anomalies. They are simply what should be expected to occur occasionally, given the frequency with which conflicts takes place.” Neil Johnson of the University of Miami has shown that Richardson’s power law also applies to attacks by terrorists and insurgents. They and others have broadened Richardson’s scope of inquiry to include the timing of attack, as well as the severity. This has prepared the grounds for a new paper currently under review, which outlines a method for forecasting the evolution of conflicts.

Gamblers come to casinos to win and when they don’t, internal conflict takes place and the power law kicks in. Some turn into predators and over the years these predators have become smart e.g. A player has been coming into a casino, 3 days a week for 2 years playing baccarat and has won over $1 million. According to the player rating system he only averages $700 a hand. Theoretically he should have lost heaps. He’s been flying under the radar because his average bet is not that high, but one day a pit manager happens to take a closer look at his “lifetime” win loss and his jaw drops when he sees he’s up so much.

Willy Allison at the recent World Game Protection conference reminded us that “it’s all about the maths”. Are you doing the maths on your data?

The sexy surveillance department

Stephanie Swan, a marketing student, mentions that dataveillance is having massive advantages for brands.

Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, predicts that the job of statistician will become the “sexiest” around. Data, he explains, are widely available; what is scarce is the ability to extract wisdom from them.

Raise the profile of your surveillance department beyond a necessary cost to company; enter the world of dataveillance and become the sexiest department in your company. Be sexy this year!