Willy Allison wonders whether some casino executives have learned enough lessons from the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.
A lone gunman, Stephen Paddock, perched in his room at the Mandalay Bay and shooting down to a country music concert below, killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others.
Allison, founder of the World Game Protection Conference which will be held March 3-6 at the Tropicana Las Vegas, will open the first full day of the conference talking about the threats that surfaced in 2018. Casinos are increasingly becoming a magnet for violent acts.
“Last year there were 12 armed robberies in Vegas casinos alone, but you would have thought after Oct. 1st they would have started putting security on the entrances, but no,” Allison said with added emphasis. “You would have thought they would have gotten better cameras, but no. Controlling access to casinos and ensuring high-risk areas are effectively covered with cameras is standard procedure in most casinos around the world.”
Casinos around the world are more innovative, Allison countered. Video analytics and artificial intelligence, which will be discussed during educational sessions and showcased at the conference’s expo, are emerging and getting better at detecting threats that can be responded to and even deterred.
Most robbers enter with a mask, and that would set off an alert, Allison said. If someone pulls out a gun at the cage, an alert would be triggered without the cashier having to hit the duress button.
“The technology exists, but it’s just convincing casinos to buy it,” Allison said. “Casino executives need to see this stuff and see it demonstrated so they understand what it can do for them. If you’re a CEO and want to know what the threats that are out there and what the resources out there to mitigate those risks, then you should come to our show.”
The tradeshow will have 30 exhibitors with many products focusing on smart technologies, Allison said. The expo is on the final day of the conference, which is technology day.
A panel discussion that day, Casino Video Analytics and AI – Now and the Future, includes Dennis Hvam, CEO of Mindway AI, a start-up applying artificial intelligence to enrich customer data with neuroscience and psychology. Another participant will be Joe McDevitt, president of Dallmeir USA Inc., a casino industry’s surveillance supplier who has developed an automated table game management system. The third panelist is Matt Macfarlane, CEO of iCetana, a spin-out from AI/machine learning research at Curtin University in Australia.
AI and analytics has been used for years by Google and Facebook for marketing purposes, Allison said, adding the casino industry needs the technology to protect assets, money and lives.
“We’re looking at video analytics and AI as the solution for the future for the reason of detecting threats,” Allison said. “We make no bones that we still have ways to go, but it’s a game changer, and that’s why it’s all positioned on the last day of the show. The first two days we learn about all the bad things happening and some solutions and on the last day we see technology is the solution moving forward. It will make us smarter, more efficient and more effective.”
Facial recognition technology is making strides, and there’s even the ability to detect wet spots in a casino, Allison said. Video analytics is becoming better at recognizing behavior as well with the resolution of cameras and software to analyze the information, he said.
“We’re getting there,” Allison said. “We have jumped forward in the last year or two.”
He said the casino industry is “cheating ourselves” by believing it can rely on a few people sitting in a dark room upstairs monitoring thousands of people in a casino.
“You can’t watch every bet that goes on the table on every game, who is stealing stuff and then watch robbers coming in,” Allison said. “That the biggest things that analytics is going to do is you don’t have to get more cameras. There are a few people watching thousands of cameras. What video analytics does is allow every camera to be a human and give us alerts. Every square inch of casino is covered right now, but no one is watching it. It would be really nice to have cameras in your casino that are smart enough to tell management that something is up.”
Allison said iCetana, for example, has artificial intelligence-based software that can learn what’s normal behavior. That study of behavior is vital because casinos can’t be complacent if somebody’s drunk or losing a lot of money.
“We have to understand our customers more and we need to detect behaviors,” Allison said. “We’re on the cusp of this technology breakthrough where we can use cameras to identify bad people.”
Allison said he doesn’t believe that robberies and violence at casinos are one-off events. He said he studies the industry daily, and it’s becoming a violent place.
“I think eventually the public is going to start scrutinizing what we do a little bit more,” Allison said. “It’s all about risk management, acknowledging that it exists, acknowledging that it’s possibly getting worse, and investing in resources, whether it’s human or technology to be able to manage that risk.”
