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Technology Thwarts Sneaky Gamblers
According to casino gambling consultant, Andrew Glazer, the
good old days, when gambling experts could "fly below casino
radar and ply their trade" are over. At the 2000 World Gaming
Congress and Expo, an industry-only trade show, he found himself
intrigued by the ever-widening array of countermeasures casinos
can take to fight schemes players have developed to beat them.
He doesn't encourage player efforts to become card-counters,
because "real card-counting takes a great deal of skill, focus,
effort and emotional control, as well as a large bankroll and
a good collection of disguises. This doesn't fit into most people's
idea of a relaxing vacation." Nonetheless, some players still
want to beat the casinos at their own game in other ways as
well, and casino support industries are busy making sure they
can't.
There were a wide assortment of automatic reshuffling machines,
all of which pretty much finish off the card-counters, or do
they? Could shuffle machines actually be violating Nevada Gaming
law? Do they alter the "random selectivity" that determines
the outcome of the game?
Shuffle-tracking, an unproven strategy, could get knocked about
by some new machines that randomly raise and lower the dealer's
discard tray. Spooks -- players who try to peek at the dealer's
hole card, either by themselves or with an associate -- have
been thwarted for some time by card-scanning technology that
lets a dealer check for blackjack without looking at his or
her cards. Competition will make these machines cheaper and
thus more widespread.
Computer-aided visual player-identification systems are growing
more and more sophisticated. Wigs or beards won't help as much
as they used to. But, is this technology really an invasion
of privacy, especially when a player is not breaking the law
by cheating?
Another area of concern is the players who like to beat the
casino out of comps by placing higher wagers when the floorman
is looking and then substantially lowering their bets when he
wanders elsewhere, in order to create an impression they are
higher rollers than they actually are. They won't like the new
technology that will insert microchips inside player chips and
allow the casino to track each player's true action electronically,
without a floorman watching. Again, who's looking out for the
player's privacy rights? Should someone be able to record what
a player bets on every hand?
As exciting and interesting these new developments may be, the
growing national concern about privacy rights is clearly being
challenged by these new devices. We predict a legal clash is
in the future should these devices become ubiquitous.
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