I am a former casino surveillance tech. AMA!

I work on the floor as a dealer. Do you ever pick up on mistakes we make and decide you can't be bothered calling down to fix it? Like of we accidentally took a winning bet or gave out a few bucks too many?

Good question.

Normally the personnel (I was a technician, so I wasn't one of those dedicated people) have some sort of uber hawk-eye power that they notice when you don't award winnings as small as 50 cents. Yeah I don't get it either. Normally, no matter what happened, we always called down to the pit manager and advised on what happened and then at that point usually they'd let the player know and advise the dealer on what happened. If the incident was resolved, it may or may not be noted against the dealer.

If the mistake costs the casino money and the player walked out before the correct funds could be collected, the incident would be put on record for that particular dealer. Not that it made much of a difference, though. Most experienced dealers had something like 50+ mistakes over the course of 10 years or something like that. In the end, we're all human.

So, What kind of vacuum do you have?

You know what? It was actually some really really really old floor vac that we used as a shop vac. It actually broke when I was hired because they made me use it so much (being the new noob).

We ended up getting an "electronics-safe" GE hand-held shop vac to replace it. It used Lith-ion drill batteries to operate.

Is facial recognition used at all?

The short answer: Kinda.

Is it used while someone is gaming randomly? No. It's used when someone previously suspected of counting/advantage/cheating arrives. Usually their face is in a database from another property.

Usually their face is in a database from another property.

I assume you share data between casinos that are owned by the same company. But, do you also share such data between companies?

Yes and yes. Usually only other casinos/companies in the same region. If the player has a criminal background and has been known to travel to your area, then sometimes the information is shared from quite a distance.

What was the most you ever saw someone win? What were they playing and how did they react?

There was an elderly couple that liked to travel a lot. They usually made a yearly round to our casino/hotel because of the resort/spa area. They never gambled, that we knew of.

This particular time, however, the old man had $5 in his pocket and decided to play a slot. That particular slot happened to be on the Wheel-Of-Fortune national progressive slots. He rolled twice and won all $2.4 million + some change.

I've heard surveillance members are never allowed back onto the gaming floor because of blind spots in the camera set-up you learn about. Is this true?

Good question.

When I quit, I learned I was not allowed back on property for a maximum of 6 months, unless otherwise noted. We didn't have blind-spots. I know because I've seen every camera's shot.

You could literally get away with nothing, unless the action had audio. We rarely recorded audio.

Is that true for other casinos/companies? Maybe. Definitely wasn't true for the casino I worked at, though.

Have you ever seen any extreme reactions to someone loosing / winning a vast amount of money?

I've seen elderly people literally fall over and die from heart attacks from winning $30K+

I've also seen grown men cry from losing continuously at dollar slots.

where do those winnings go?

In that particular case, the casino was nice enough to let next-of-kin have the winnings.

This may just be in the movies but what do I know, I've only been in a casino 3 times in my life... Do some casinos beat the shit out of cheaters or card counters or what's their punishment? Also why did you quit?

No, since most casinos are strictly governed by either gaming commissions or state/regional committees, it'd be very hard for them to get away with beating someone over the head for counting cards.

Getting beat by other players that lost because of the cheating is an entirely different story. ;)

I quit because there was no chain of command in place for me to follow without stepping on someone's toes, and as a result, when shit hit the fan, I had no one to go to and and things like that kept piling up.

It got to a point where I was about to be fired for something that could have been avoided had I had a co-worker on the same level to assist me/understand the situation, I ended up resigning to avoid it looking bad for me.

How much money does the typical casino spend on surveillance?

Well, most casinos are still using non-digital recording tech, believe it or not. Some of those systems were state-of-the-art in like 1980.

Luckily I worked somewhere where all recording was digital and stored on servers, but that also made everything hell-aciously expensive.

I'd say ours was worth somewhere in the $10-20 Million range, with over 3000 cameras on property and enough video storage capacity to record the entire lives of 100 people easily.

Sounds like a pretty interesting job seeing how things work behind the scenes. How often do you encounter people trying to cheat the games? What is the game you saw this sort of thing on the most? I imagine blackjack, but what do I know.

Any cool stories of things that went down? Finally, They aren't watching me when I pee are they? (I shake a third time to be sure!)

Most casinos that are state and region-regulated won't allow cameras in personal areas (Hotel rooms, bathrooms, etc).

Blackjack and card-counting go hand in hand (as you know), and that's usually the most action anyone in surveillance is concerned about. They're usually labeled as "Advantage players" and if they're not blatantly counting, they still get tabs put on themselves for winning a lot of money every time they visit the tables. Usually the people actually watching the monitors are former dealers and etc and also know how to count cards themselves, so they can counter-count (contradicting?) and try to spot a method/pattern.

The only actual cheating I ever witnessed live was someone using their phone during a Hold 'Em game. The only reason they almost got away with it was because they would only look down through shades and type things in without looking down continuously. I wouldn't recommend trying it.

I once saw some coverage of a guy walking through one of the mid-floors in the hotel area at about 5-6am wearing nothing but bubble-wrap around his waist. He kinda drunkenly walked up to a low-hanging dome camera, tore it out of the ceiling, and stumbled away like nothing happened.

Is there an amount of winnings after which a person starts getting "watched" playing Blackjack?

I don't know if I can give an exact amount, but it would be more than $15K per sit-down. In blackjack, that's a lot.

edit: Though, if they do it once or twice and then never again for a while, they won't be watched every time they get to a table. Most of the time the amount and player is noted and then isn't looked at until it happens again.

What is the most common thing you have to throw people out for?

Drunk & Disorderly. Kinda the casino's fault though. A lot of the popular video-poker areas are literally built into the bar, right next to the bartender and the alcohol.

Although i'm sure they're very far fetched and dramatized, how much truth are in films like 21, Oceans 11 and Runner, Runner?

Is it even possible to trick the system like that?

Card counting is real. I'm sure there are tons of people that get away with it.

However, robbing a casino blind with thousands of people around? Not even close. At least, not when you have a surveillance team that works uninterrupted for 24 hours a day. The system has backup power and backup power for the backup power. I never remember the lights going out and us losing coverage of anything.

edit: grammar

I've seen postings for our casinos for video surveillance operators. Would you recommend this position? Could this position lead to others in security?

It's a great position -- just be sure to have experience with table games prior to applying. They're gonna want people that know how to watch games, and very few offer a lot of training. Mostly, they look for ex-dealers.

I apologize for not answering questions sooner. I passed out at the desk about 8 hours ago.

I have keyboard face. :(

How long are video recordings kept?

My state's law requires all cameras, gaming, non-gaming, or otherwise, have a minimum of 14 days coverage stored back.

What quality is it stored in? That's a lot of data.

Normally anywhere from Standard 4:3 @ 480p, 60fps to 720p hi-def. My particular workplace had over 3000 cameras continuously recording at any given time. There was a LOT of space needed for it. Most of the data pools were 36TB in single-unit capacity.

How much have you seen someone lose in one sitting?

$151,600 on roulette. He was a veteran member of the casino and was probably loaded to begin with.

Besides the elderly couple winning 2.4 million, what's the biggest amount someone has won while you were there?

I was there when the $2.4 Million was won, but alas it was only through a surveillance monitor.

Walking through the gaming floor, though, I've personally witnessed several smaller jackpots. $14K, $130K, $29K, etc.

Whats the craziest thing you've seen?

I once saw some coverage of a guy walking through one of the mid-floors in the hotel area at about 5-6am wearing nothing but bubble-wrap around his waist. He kinda drunkenly walked up to a low-hanging dome camera, tore it out of the ceiling, and stumbled away like nothing happened.

Are there really cameras everywhere? Bathrooms and bedrooms too? How many cameras were there in your casino and how many people does it take to monitor everything?

By law, there were no cameras in any bathrooms or bedrooms. That also goes for 99% of all casinos.

I can't give you an exact number of people that monitored the cameras (it's in the single digits), but there were 3000+ cameras on property. You wouldn't flare your nostrils on the gaming floor without a camera seeing it.

Your ID looks a little cock-eyed.

Hohohoho I see what you did there.

Any stories of CHEATER'S JUSTICE?

Nothing that brutal, no. There was never any blatant cheating going on. That's usually just movie stuff.

Every now and then, though, someone does something (usually unknowingly) that might be considered cheating and they get scared because by law we have to call the gaming commission to investigate them. (The gaming commission is a department of the state police here.)

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You'd be surprised how much we catch other employees trying to run an underground operation for money.