Chips in Chips?? Vegas is Watching...
posted by:Michelle Gordon // 08:16 PM // February 09, 2005 // Surveillance and social sorting
CNet News.com
Casino mogul Steve Wynn has pulled out all the stops for his new $2.7 billion mega-resort in Las Vegas: an 18-hole championship golf course, a private lake and mountain, and a bronze tower housing 2,700 plush guest rooms.
But when its doors open in April, the Wynn Las Vegas will have one unique feature that few visitors are likely to notice--high-tech betting chips designed to deter counterfeiting, card-counting and other bad behavior.
The fancy new chips look just like regular ones, only they contain radio devices that signal secret serial numbers. Special equipment linked to the casino's computer systems and placed throughout the property will identify legitimate chips and detect fakes, said Rick Doptis, vice president of table games for the Wynn.
The technology behind these chips is known as radio frequency identification, or RFID, and it's been used for years to track livestock, enable employee security badges and pay tolls.
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Comments
Casinos are already bastions of surveillance. There are cameras upon cameras. RFID tags in chips, however, can change things more so to the house's favour.
I can easily foresee a situation where tag readers around the casino will be scanning a person’s chips to tally up how much money they have. Casinos of course want to know how much money people are willing to part with...I mean play to win with. Moreover, it won't be hard to build gambler profiles of those who stay in the hotel - their information is already in the database - and have that paired with the quantum data from their playing chips.
Tracking the chips, casinos can learn what games people like to play and where they win the most. From this, they can be creative in diverting people to the games and tables that they would like to see the gamblers play at.
Remember, the house always win.
Posted by: Marty at February 10, 2005 12:12 PM
