Include casino security in technology talks
Pub Date: 5/1/2008
Gambling Control Division Administrator Gene Huntington has called for the convening of a working group to explore the technological future of video gambling and what that ever advancing technology means for the future of the Montana market.
The Gaming Advisory Council offered its endorsement March 28 and so it begins in Billings June 25. See Huntington's column on page five of this edition.
Cashless gaming, downloadable games, hand-held wireless gaming terminals, games played on terminals linked to a central server, the potential change from impact to thermal printers, bill validator obsolescence, location and vendor route machine networks...
It seems that all issues will be explored. It is a large undertaking and an endeavor worthy of commendation, in our view.
Perhaps another agenda item is in order: casino security and safety.
There are too many gaming venues robbed each year, some of them multiple times and some at gunpoint.
Why are gaming establishments such targets?
Well, they must keep substantial amounts of cash on hand to pay potential winners...as mandated by state law! Add to that currency required for servicing customers and cash "dropped" from the machines at the end of the daily business cycle and it can amount to many thousands.
In addition, casinos are relatively low-security, at least compared to banks or even mega-stores. The best most licensed establishments currently do is install security cameras and alarms, which are generally useful only after the hit has happened.
Perhaps, then, through technology and manpower, we need to (a) reduce the amount of accessible currency on the premises and (b) radically increase the chances of robbers being stopped or caught.
The first may be the easiest.
"Montana has reached the point where a choice must be made between looking to connect video gambling machines to a computer or communications network, or a strategy to maintain a supply of free-standing video gambling machines.
Connection to a system does not necessarily mean a state-wide central system but could be a casino-based or route-based system."
So says Gambling Control Division Administrator Gene Huntington in his opinion column.
The subject of networking machines has been taboo for awhile, considering the slippery downslope associated with it: wide-area progressives, player tracking, government intrusion and so on.
But there could be an upside to the notion.
In the sophisticated and leading-edge Nevada market, where win prizes are theoretically unlimited, some route operators that vend small "convenience" gaming locations have all their machines tied to a central computer.
At each location there is one of those small security safes that will only dispense currency for use by casino attendants in small, measured batches.
A player hits a machine for, say, $800 and a signal is sent by that machine to a mainframe which almost instantly instructs the automated security safe to dispense the $800, which is promptly delivered to the winner. No need to keep bundles of tempting currency handy...and accessible.
In addition, that main computer lets the operator know at any instant the cash supply status at any location. If you get hit for three $800 winners and the location safe had only $2,000 in it, better hustle some more cash over there.
There is no apparent reason similar networks couldn't be built for the Montana market, for an individual location with just a few machines to a route servicing thousands of them...except for one thing: it isn't allowed under Montana law.
But it looks as though when Huntington's technology group gets together, they are going to be slicing and dicing every aspect of the gaming business--the law and rules, the equipment--all as it is applied to emerging and future technology.
This is the ideal time, then, to figure out the statutory and hardware changes required to allow the use of automated cash-dispensing secure safes tied directly to machines in a network.
As for heightening security at these venues? Well, maybe that's another agenda item for the technology group. In the meantime, an armed security guard might help.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, May, 2008, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.