House Money is Smart Money

Mar 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Michael Fickes

GAMBLING CASINOS AROUND THE WORLD may soon begin to install new radio frequency identification (RFID) gaming chips and other smart table technology to enhance security and to improve operations.

“We are not that far away from smart gaming tables,” says Bart Pestrichello, vice president, casino operations at the Hard Rock Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. “I would say it would take about nine months. Once we get there, it will take some time to massage the technology to get it where we want it.”

RFID-enabled gaming chip systems, which Pestrichello says represent about 50 percent of the smart table solution, are ready to install right now. To use this technology, a casino would install sensors beneath each of the betting stations at each of its gaming tables. When a player places a bet, if it is not positioned properly in the betting station, the dealer would move the bet to the right spot, the spot where the closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) above the tables can see the bet and where the sensors below the table can read the RFID tags built into the betting chips.

Suppose the player has bet five chips. The CCTV camera sees all five, but the RFID system counts only four chips. That means that one chip is not equipped with an RFID chip, at least not one that the system can read. If all the chips used in the casino contain readable RFID chips, the pit boss will likely get a message from security that the player who has just bet five chips has a counterfeit chip in his possession.

If the player wins, the dealer will pay out winnings for a five-chip bet, but the RFID operator will note it as a mispay. Alerts will go out. CCTV cameras will photograph the player, register the location, note the event and track the player through the casino. Files will be checked. Who is the player? Is he known as a counterfeiter? Is he a bad actor? Did he simply pick up a counterfeit chip in one of the other games?

Gaming chips with RFID tags make this and much more possible for a gambling industry ready for technologies that will enhance security and streamline operations.

RFID technology has been around for years. Why is all of this suddenly possible? “Through 2005, the only RFID gaming chip systems sold anywhere in the world have been based on old 125 KHz RFID technology, which is slow and cannot be encrypted,” explains John Kendall, president and CEO of Chipco International, Raymond, Maine.

Chipco is one of two companies that sell gaming chips to casinos. The other is Gaming Partners International Corp., based in Las Vegas. Both companies have been selling older 125 KHz RFID systems, and both waited for years for higher-speed 13.56 MHz RFID gaming chip technology to earn approval from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC).

Two years ago, they got what they wanted. The FCC approved the use of 13.56 MHz RFID systems operated at a maximum power of 8 watts — up significantly from the previous limit of one watt. It takes four-watt RFID systems to carry out certain casino applications.

For example, Kendall says, many casinos would like to position RFID gaming chip sensors across doorways used by casino staff to enter and leave the gaming areas. Staff may not carry chips through these doors. The new technology will ensure that they do not.

Neither 125 KHz RFID technology nor one-watt 13.56 MHz RFID technology could perform this task. The signal from these systems is not strong enough to traverse an entire doorway. But a 4-watt 13.56 MHz RFID signal can reach across a doorway and detect the presence of RFID gaming chips in the possession of anyone passing through a controlled door.

According to Kendall, 13.56 MHz RFID technology can deliver five security and operational applications to casino managers. These include the two applications mentioned above — controlling counterfeit chips and preventing employee theft — plus three more: tracking bets of individual players, automating certain operations and auditing for better control of chips.

Finding card counters

A 13.56 MHz RFID gaming chip system can track individual players and the bets that they make. By analyzing betting patterns, savvy casino security managers can find players that are trying to cheat the casino or players that the casino cannot afford to gamble with.

Take card counting, for example. The practice is not illegal; however, casino management can ask card counters to leave or at least bar them from playing blackjack — if, that is, they can find the card counters before they walk out with bags full of cash. RFID gaming chips make it possible to find card counters — as well as cheats — by having the technology alert security to certain patterns of betting.

Casino managers know how card counters bet and can program an RFID gaming chip system to alert security when such a betting pattern is detected. “Suppose a player has been betting $5 for the last 10 minutes, and suddenly he starts betting $500,” Kendall says. “You would want security to swing the surveillance camera around and take his picture. Is he new? Do we have a profile on him? Is he a card counter?”

Smart gaming chips enable a casino's gaming and security managers to make judgments about players by watching their patterns. If the patterns are questionable or illegal, they can take appropriate action.

This application also offers an operational benefit. It enables casino managers to tailor complimentary services to guests depending on the average bet sizes they make.

Automation

RFID chips can also automate basic operational tasks. At a roulette game, for example, players typically bet non-value chips — chips not marked with any value.

Players using a non-value chip simply declare the value of their bets when laying them down. Players may also bet value chips — chips that are marked with values — at the roulette table.

Trouble is, the two different kinds of chips create a stutter step in operations that RFID-enabled value chips can eliminate. In a roulette game, winners get their chips back. But the other chips are swept into a chip sorter under the table. Non-value chips are made in a number of different solid colors. The sorter is an automated technology that can sort and stack non-value chips by color. On the other hand, value chips are multi-colored, and the sorter spits them into an exception tray where a person has to spend time dealing with them.

By putting an RFID reader in the chip sorting machines, they can be upgraded to read color as well as an RFID signature, Kendall says. It's another way to streamline casino operations.

RFID audit and control

A fifth RFID application returns to the security functions of counting and controlling what happens to chips.

In a typical casino, a dealer will, from time to time, win a lot or lose a lot. Depending on what happens, a dealer's bank will fill up or become depleted. A dealer with too many chips will ask the pit boss for a credit. A dealer with too few chips will ask for a fill. The pit boss gets a runner or keys a fill or credit order into a terminal. Eventually the folks in the cage send someone to deliver or pick up the chips. “If we sensorize the tray and add RFID chips, it is possible for the software system to order chip fills or credits automatically,” Kendall says.

These and other applications as well as other technologies are beginning to make gaming tables smarter.

The market for smart gaming tables

Industry observers expect that smart gaming technology will catch on quickly now that 13.56 MHz RFID systems have become available.

Wynn Las Vegas has been using several hundred thousand 125 KHz RFID gaming chips to prevent counterfeits. Wynn has placed RFID readers at the cashier windows, and whenever someone cashes out a chip valued at $25 or more, the system will check to make sure it is a valid RFID-enabled Wynn chip.

The Hard Rock Hotel Casino is experimenting with 125 KHz RFID chips at four of its blackjack tables. Here, the goal is to track player bets and use the information to mete out complimentary services.

Upgrading these systems to perform the other five smart table tasks made possible by RFID technology will require 13.56 MHz chips.

“There are four components to what I call a smart table,” Hard Rock's Pestrichello says. “First comes software that can control all the operations you are interested in. Second is bet detection, which we are using now. Third is another RFID technique that can tell you what chips are in the chip trays at all times. The capability of the faster 13.56 MHz chip to read large numbers of chips in an instant makes this possible.

“Fourth is card recognition. To evaluate players' skills, you have to recognize the cards as they come out of the dealer's shoe. Then you can make judgments about the decisions players make. This has nothing to do with RFID. Instead it depends on a smart shoe that can report what cards are dealt.”

Pestrichello believes that RFID-enabled chips represent about half of the overall smart table technological solution. The smart shoe, with a longer development horizon, represents the other half.

ABOUT THE COMPANIES

For information, circle the Reader Service number (listed below) or visit securitysolutions.com

Chipco International.	30
Gaming Partners International Corp.	31

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