New technology marks casino tricks

Due to new facial-recognition technology there will be no longer place to hide for tricks. Students in the casino studies program at SUNY Morrisville are trained to spot identified cheaters and assumed criminals by utilizing a database-linked video system that is able to match a subject’s facial characteristics against a file of known criminals. The technology is part of the increasing field of biometrics, recognizing people by the unique characteristics of their body elements.

The system unites high-resolution security cameras and computer technology to calculate facial characteristics, such as the length between a person’s eyes. The personal measurements make a specific profile that could classify a person “on sight” with qualified confidence much as a facial fingerprint. The computer could “see through” masks by using multiple measurements to evaluate a face.

“Each person’s face is unique, the facial recognition system uses unique traits to create a facial map,” notes Professor Peter LaMacchia, director of Morrisville’s casino-studies program.

The technology, contributed by Biometrica, Inc., is utilized in casinos all over the world to spot gaming swindlers and other undesirables before they cause problem. Due to the firm’s kindness, Morrisville’s students are able to educate on the $26,000 equipment in the classroom while they study to spot cheaters. Sophisticated observation cameras stare down at the gaming tables in LaMacchia’s classroom. The cameras send images to a monitor operated by Daniel Hanns, a first-year program student. Harms train the camera on this reporter, warily lingering at the end of the craps table.

LaMacchia, gambling the role of a casino security boss, makes a decision the suspicious character earns a closer look. He takes the image Hanns has taken and “enrolls” it in the database, with the Biometrica Facial Recognition computer program.

The enrollment starts with fixing the center of the eyes on the image. The Biometrica program could automatically situate the center of the pupils or the operator is able to execute the operation by hand. The program then creates a programmed “mask” of the subject’s face that could be compared with future images in a database.

Security personnel fill an enrollment record that goes with the image too. The record includes details from the subject’s name and height on down to his exacting technique of cheating.

Students take their turns running the equipment during class, attempting to catch their instructor tricking. Other lessons have students trying to fool the equipment by putting on disguises. In the classroom, the “cheaters” contain fellow students who have fake enrollment forms in the system, marking them as cheaters for the other students to root out.

Additionally to manual identification, the camera and computer arrangement could be set to automatically recognize suspect individuals, notes LaMacchia. A camera trained on a chokepoint, such as the casino entry, is able to scan the faces of those coming in against known images in the database at the rate of 250,000 images every four seconds.

Although the system is targeted at catching gaming cheats before they could leave with the casino’s cash, facial recognition could have many other options of using it. Law-enforcement officials used the Biometrica system to scan the Super Bowl crowd for criminals throughout this year’s game in Tampa. Many casinos, states LaMacchia, utilize the systems in their hotel areas to recognize persons barred from the property.

Gaming-technology firms sell computerized files of barred persons, cheaters, for utilize with biometric recognition systems.

Not all the disqualified people are cheaters, notes LaMacchia. Some problem players, he states, willingly propose themselves for banishment, inquiring casino security personnel not to let them come in.

As of security concerns, casinos are unwilling to discuss their anti-cheating measures.

Although technology is making the cheater’s job trickier, notes LaMacchia, security is always a enduring matter in casino running.

“There’s always somebody trying to beat the security,” he notes.

LaMacchia spent 25 years working in the gaming business, going to Central New York to aid installing the Oneida Nation’s Turning Stone Casino earlier than turning into an instructor.

SUNY Morrisville’s casino studies program, states LaMacchia, is the just one of its kind, although the University of Nevada at Las Vegas integrates some of the same matters as part of a hospitality degree. Primary winning state support in 1998, the program has expanded to 45 students this year. The program plasters every feature of operations from dealing the cards to managing a property. State controllers and law-enforcement officials are present on gaming seminars ran by LaMacchia as part of their job training.

The program works in Morrisville’s hospitality program. LaMacchia pressures on the significance of the gaming sector as one part of the overall hospitality picture.

The gaming business has been very helpful of the casino-studies program, states David Rogers, dean of Momisville’s School of Business.

“We couldn’t do this without industry support,” he notes.

The program’s students might have fake rap sheets in the computer files, but they maintain real resumes online from the start of their studies. The number of gaming companies has boomed over the past ten years, enlarging from Nevada and New Jersey to almost all state. LaMacchia never lets his students lose sight of the ultimate goal.

“The students will be equipped with the tools to enter the workforce in an expanding job market,” he notes.

With this idea, LaMacchia has a hope that he could give a hand to professionalize the business.

Casino studies will move to a new home on campus next year. This month, Morrisville is starting its fund-raising for a new $2 million building for the school’s hospitality programs. At the lunching party, LaMacchia’s students will get a possibility to put their skills to work, acting as dealers at the event’s mock casino.