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    1. Alarms & Monitoring
    2. Alarm Systems & Intrusion Detection

    Vertical Market Focus--Betting on IP: The Second Generation of Casino Digital Systems

    March 20, 2012
    Casinos are moving to IP systems and focusing on hybrid in the interim
    Curt Harler
    Photo of Hollywood Casino Lawrenceberg Courtesy of Penn National Gaming
    The high roller rooms of casinos are moving to high resolution images for accountability and identification management.
    The high roller rooms of casinos are moving to high resolution images for accountability and identification management.

    While many state gaming regulators have already required the migration from analog to digital video recording, some states still allow the use of complete analog recording solutions. Even though converting an existing site from analog recording (mainly utilizing VCRs and video tape), to digital recording (HVRs, DVRs and NVRs) can be costly, many casinos find digital systems offer significant benefits like being able to quickly and easily search and review video or tie third party systems (point of sale, access control, slot management, etc.) to the surveillance network.

    Some casinos are even starting to bet on all-IP systems, especially when IT departments have a say in the surveillance specifications. Most however, are still harboring fears about more costly and complex network-based IP systems and continue to play it safe by adding IP slowly. This means the integrator who can provide a hybrid digital recording solution that merges analog and IP is likely to grab the attention of most casino operators.

    The mix of analog and IP makes sense

    Tim Lyvers, chief executive officer at Advanced Digital Solutions Inc. (ADS), Catawba, N.C., is a key integrator for the casino industry and started his career as a casino surveillance technician. He is sold on a mixed digital video offering and frequently sells IP and high-definition video in the cash areas at existing digital sites. “It is worth the investment in the money areas, over table games and at the entrances,” said Lyvers. “You can get a lot more data and clarity from your video.” While he admits there is little value-add for a high-definition camera recording a back of house hallway, he explained casinos are intrigued by the ability to check for slight-of-hand tricks or identify cash denominations passed across a table.  

    The casino market has been active for ADS in the last 12 months. They secured contracts to install video surveillance systems from Synectic Systems, Inc.—a digital CCTV hardware and software manufacturer—in five Penn National Gaming casinos, including new properties in the just-licensed states of Ohio and Kansas. Lyvers said that Synectics’ Synergy video management software is very user-friendly. “That’s a big factor with the traction they're continuing to gain in the industry—the mapping and reporting in Synergy is easy for surveillance operators to learn and use,” he said.

    One of the recent sites to deploy the ADS installed, Synectics-driven system, is the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway, outside Kansas City, which does business as Kansas Entertainment LLC—a joint venture of Penn National Gaming and International Speedway Corporation. Lyvers and his team installed a mix of analog and IP cameras all recorded on Synectics’ Synergy VMS. This is a strategy he frequently employs not only at the Penn National projects, but also at other sites he serves. “There is an analog and IP camera mix at the Kansas Speedway property but for table games they opted for high-definition IP cameras because of the superior image quality,” commented Lyvers.

    At another current ADS/Synectics project, the Kansas Star Casino in Wichita, ADS has installed an all-IP camera recording system using Pelco cameras, Synectics’ recording and video management system and an ADS design. “Kansas Star went all IP because their IT director was involved in the decision process early on,” Lyvers explained. “Because of the picture quality and detail IP cameras offer, Kansas Star requested analog components not be included in the design.”

    Lyvers sees picture quality as the key driver to casinos starting to use IP cameras and he finds state gaming regulators are pushing it once they see the value. The real move will come when the states begin to mandate it within gaming regulations.

    Analyzing costs of analog versus IP

    “We are entering the second generation of digital recording systems in casinos,” said John Katnic, vice president and chief operating officer at Synectic Systems Inc., Carpinteria, Calif. “We see significant evolution in the gaming market to IP because of the advances that have been made with high definition and megapixel cameras,” he continued. “An all IP solution can be cost effective because it eliminates the need for analog video encoders and simplifies cabling. Plus, when designed correctly, it is very reliable and offers casinos the flexibility to easily add a variety of third-party IP cameras as they expand.”

    The cost-benefit from IP video depends on the situation and the specification. Clearly, most casino operators would prefer to keep their legacy analog systems for as long as they can to maximize their original investment in that equipment. Factors like ease of expansion, cost of rewire, availability on existing matrix switches and image quality come into play when considering a move to an all-IP networked solution.

    “On a new build, it is as cost-effective to go all-IP as it is to go analog because the money ordinarily spent on the matrix and cable goes into the network. The price of recording is the same. Digital cameras do cost more but there is savings on the encoder and of course infrastructure efficiencies of having network-deployed devices,” said Katnic.

    Fines for not following the rules

    With the steep fines that can be handed out by gaming regulators for loss of video , there remains concern about up-time and single points of failure within any digital system. “If you drop your network in an all-IP solution, you drop everything. It is your spinal cord,” Lyvers stated. The jackpot for a casino is to find an integrator who can not only provide a seamless hybrid system but also have the technical resources to help them migrate to a resilient networked IP system as the casino goes forward.  

    “To efficiently protect the casino's assets, the customer, integrator and manufacturer have to work together,” Katnic said. “What is required is a holistic system that normalizes video into one universal media format and brings together data from disparate systems from the enterprise into a central command-and-control interface." That is not always easy. In many jurisdictions, there is a ‘church-and-state’ separation between surveillance and the local area network overseen by IT that can add complexity to the integration process.

    With casinos starting to demand high-definition IP cameras over high-value sources like cashier cages and high-stakes table games, integrators will need to evolve to a higher level of network expertise sooner than later. Lyver’s recognizes this and has added technicians with IT knowledge to his team. He also relies upon solution partners like Synectics, who have network engineers and designers to provide the support required to offer a complete, integrated solution.

    Perhaps more than integrators or regulators, it is manufacturers who will dictate the move to IP. Lyvers does not expect a decisive move to IP in the gaming industry until manufacturers cut back on the production of analog cameras and the price of IP cameras drop. “Then, there will be a bigger rush to IP,” he explained.

    “In casinos, they want one throat to choke and a turn-key system,” Katnic concluded. The integrator who teams with a good manufacturer should never roll snake eyes.

    Unlocking the Potential of IP

    Interoperability for IP video has the potential to bring great value to the security industry and development of such standards is still evolving between two organizations: PSIA (the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance www.psialliance.org) and ONVIF (the Open Network Video Interface Forum www.onvif.org). Backed by different segments of the security industry, each has made strides towards workable open standards. PSIA works primarily in five areas: video, video analytics, recording and content management, area control and systems. ONVIF has focused primarily on cameras. PSIA is more broad-based. Neither addresses completely the issue of audio, alarms or onboard memory in IP cameras.

    “Until IP technologies are just as easy to design, sell and install as traditional analog CCTV systems, IP will not deliver on its true value,” said Scott Harkins, president and general manager of Honeywell Systems, Melville, N.Y. “Deploying standards that drive true interoperability is a key initiative and is a critical step to unlocking the potential of IP for our customers and the industry as a whole.”

    Value in the Data

    Casino surveillance departments are seeking ways to deal with information overload from hundreds to thousands of cameras covering every square foot of the gaming floor, cashier cages, dining and retail areas, not to mention back-of-house systems like fire alarms, access control and time clocks for personnel.

    The security staff has to deal with a lot of “background noise” when analyzing data,” said John Katnic, vice president and chief operating officer of Synectics. Sometimes the indication of fraud, theft or collusion does not come from a single device focused on the subject, but from a combination of small interrelated data points gathered from cameras, alarm or other electronic devices elsewhere in the casino.

    To assist surveillance personnel with the task of sifting through all that data, Synectics has developed an analytics approach called Dataveillance, which combines video with alarm and transactional data from third party systems. Once alarm and transactional data is pushed to the surveillance network from various integrated systems within the casino, Dataveillance is able to provide a common database environment and graphical user interface (GUI) to manipulate and analyze the information through unique algorithms designed to expose deception, theft and cheat scams. Because every casino environment is unique, it can take time and work to integrate these systems and to establish the Boolean logic required for proper analysis. Once thresholds are established and “if/and/or” guidelines created, the casino has a powerful, software tool to tie suspicious transactions directly to video.

    For example, let’s say the system is tracking a table with a $100 buy-in. If the network sees a player place $2,000 in bets in an hour (less than 30X buy-in), it simply ignores that data and moves on. However, if that same player places $4,000 in bets (more than 30X buy-in), it triggers an alarm to the pit boss to be sure there is no ‘comp’ violation occurring.

    In the back-of-house, Dataveillance can detect if only one key card was swiped at the employee entrance but two time cards were punched at the time clock. Maybe it is benign; a look at the associated video might show one worker held the door for a second. Or, it could show that one employee clocked in himself and a friend that was running late.

    Tying together convergence and integration

    Likewise, a well-designed system tied to restaurant point-of-sale (POS) will inform supervisors of each time a certain bartender gave away or “comp’d” for example, more than $50 worth of Jack Daniels simply by merging video and POS transactional and sending an alarm and video clip to the food and beverage department for review.

    A fully integrated video and slot system will, for example, track data over historic periods—say the past week—or can be proactive and alarm any time a slot machine pays a large jackpot, has an open door, sounds its tamper alarm, or is visited by a high-value player. The system works in real-time and is limited only by the speed by which the various systems provide data.

    Katnic says it is the applications unique to gaming like player tracking and slot management that offer the most intriguing return on investment (ROI) proposition because of the potential to alarm on cheat scams as they happen rather than afterwards when the damage has already been done. "We're moving forward this year with Bally Technologies to complete slot integration to our Synergy VMS and launch our first live application of Dataveillance," said Katnic. Ultimately to take advantage of a tool like Dataveillance, properties need to add custom integration development to their surveillance system budget and also drive the third party vendors to deliver the necessary connectivity, data export functionality and API documentation to enable integration.

    Photo courtesy Sony
    Mark Collett is the general manager, Sony Security Systems Division