IamA Surveillance officer in a casino, AMA!

Let's say that you were prepping someone to go into a casino to cheat. What tips do you give them to best improve their chances of not getting caught?

Be quick and careful, if the dealer didn't see it then its possible that surveillance doesn't see it either.

How often do you catch people actually cheating rather than just people behaving badly?

What games to people most often try to cheat?

We don't have tables in our casino because were considered a 'Gaming center' so I never catch people cheating because its pretty much impossible on slots without an external device. We keep a good eye on external devices, specially if someone tries to plug something into the machine.

Mostly we just catch people behaving badly, or we review the footage when someone does something stupid.

I've had people in my field that have worked elsewhere tell me that its mainly roulette and blackjack that they try to cheat, capping bets and undercutting them and such. Pretty easy cheats to catch.

is there anything in particular which you specifically are looking forward to when you start your shift?

I just look foreword to nothing bad happening, enjoying my lunch and Reddit and going home with everyone (staff and customers) safe.

And maybe seeing some one do something silly to give me a good laugh, like falling off a chair or something minor.

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Do you also visit reddit during work hours or are you guys much busier than we are?

Woah woah woah slow down there buddy we ask the questions here

Woah there ass_monkeys, your name is awesome.

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I have huge lulls in between the daily things I have to do and I can watch the cameras pretty good while I'm looking at reddit.

What is the least noticeable way for me to cheat?

Least noticeable? Don't bother, you give me more work to do.

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I can reply to both questions: Probably bodily functions.

One time a lady shit her pants then went to the bathroom and took off her underwear and left it in the stall, then left after smearing her ass juice all over the toilet and some on the wall.

Also we had one guy that would come in and piss himself, then proceed to sit in many other chairs and continue to gamble while still soaking wet. We had to take all the chairs that he had sat in off the floor because they smelled horribly of piss.

You have cameras in the bathroom??? Isn't that illegal?

hahahaha no we do not have cameras in the bathroom, but this is what the security found when they investigated the complaint. I then went back on footage to see her shitting herself on the slot floor.

are there any blind spots in a casino? places where you cannot be captured by a camera?

yea there are but the thing is that the average patron doesn't know where they are and you cannot tell by looking at the cameras. Plus if you stand around looking at the cameras you will be watched very closely till you leave haha.

Most of the blind spots are in employee areas but not nearly as many as you would think because our cameras are set up almost perfectly.

That's why I always seem to have someone following new... I'm a naturally curious guy and my ex wife like to hit the casino once in a while

Yea generally they don't like people standing around, mapping out where the cameras are. Security will walk by you much more and if you do the slightest thing you're probably gone.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2gb2gz/casino_workers_of_reddit_what_goes_in_behind_the/

Care to join in on my /r/askreddit thread?

Will do!

How do you guys catch people who count the cards?

Well we don't have tables so we don't have to pay attention to this, but counting cards isn't illegal if you're extremely good/stealthy at it. Very difficult to pull off for the average Joe though.

What's the craziest thing you've ever seen while working?

Other than the bodily functions, I've seen a guy get hit (we pretty much never have fights in the casino), I've seen car crashes on the street, People falling/fainting is always funny. Drunks puking is pretty funny too.

Everything is a little funnier when you don't have to deal with it directly but get to witness the whole thing.

That's what god must be thinking all the time.

God loves a drunk.

God loves watching people get shit faced, fall over and piss them selves then get thrown out of the casino. As do I.

Thanks for answering our questions. Ever catch anyone getting it on in the middle of the casino? How do you handle obvious escorts that are trolling for business as well?

Well we're a smaller establishment but obvious hookers are watched when they enter until they exit. If it looks as though they picked up a 'John' then we would inform the police.

I've seen one instance of people 'getting it on' in the parking lot. A guy had a woman/hook/escort in his truck in the far side of one of our lots and our security had to ask them to stop and leave the property. It was hilarious to watch because I wasn't the one that had to go out there and smell the stank when they opened the window of the truck.

So it wasn't as romantic as the car scene in Titanic?

Not nearly, the was no easel.

Obviously you look for specific patterns in people's behavior. Could you elaborate on the more unusual "tells" that set you off to suspicious activity?

Just odd behavior: walking weird, running, darting around, quick or unsuspected movements, Baggy clothing and stereotyping are huge parts of the security industry. Also frequent trips to the parking lot, talking/loitering in the parking lot, flashy cars with sketchy people in them.

What kind of stereotyping would you say is common in the industry?

Ummm, read between the lines. I really hope OP doesn't answer this as it's fairly obvious.

There are a lot of different kinds of stereotyping that can happen. I was wondering if there was anything unusual beyond typical racial stereotyping.

Basically anyone that looks like a drug dealer or thug, is a drug dealer or a thug and they should be watched. Over 90% of the time when someone sketchy comes in and were told to watch them, they do something stupid.

Have you ever been tempted to intervene discreetly upon seeing someone who obviously had a problem and was losing serious money? And what would happen if you did?

Well I'm not on the floor but when I was on the floor it was difficult to not ask someone if they have a problem. We're trained to be objective and if they ask for help then we would be able to help them.

How many cameras in the casino are real vs how many are fake?

There are no cameras that are fake in any casino. If you see a camera, it sees you.

How often are counterfeit bills passed? Do you catch them via camera?

Every so often we have a counterfeit bill come through. Surveillance wouldn't be the ones catching it but the cash cage would identify it as fake then ask us to review the footage and get pictures of the person so it can be reported. They always say "OH?! I didn't know it was fake!".

I genuinely tried to spend a fake bill once on accident.

I got it from 7-11 and tried to spend it back to the same one and they caught it. Probably a racket!

Yea they're pretty hard to pass. If you get a dumb slot attendant that will give you change for it, that will work. Look for someone that's new.

Did you take advantage of your position anytime, like a prank or something, although this looks a serious job but.... Is it?

Not as of yet, it's not as serious as you think until something happens. If shit goes down then you have to be focused and quick to get pictures of faces, license plates and such.

I've had the security try to play pranks on me when theyre bringing me food or something but I can see them on the cameras so it never works. For example, I asked for a pop (soda) from the machine and the security guy that was bringing it to me put a vinegar package around the end of the straw so that when I sucked to get pop I would get vinegar. I just took it off and drank my pop normally, told him good try haha.

is there anything cool/fascinating thing you could share which an ordinary person wouldn't know? Something which impressed you?

How many cameras we watch and the room is pretty cool/high tech looking. I feel like a boss with 12 computer monitors at my disposal.

Another fascinating thing would be how much money is handled and how people get accustomed to it very fast. When we count bills, we count 10s of thousands of dollars at a time with a money counting machine. The machine sounds like a hurricane and counts 100,000$ in mere seconds.

What happens to the person who does something stupid or behaves badly? Do they get banned from the casino or they go directly to prison?

They usually only get banned from the casino, if its bad enough like cheating or fighting with staff they will get banned in the whole province. If they're selling drugs and we catch it on camera and they don't leave before the cops actually get here then yea they'll probably go to jail.

Have you yourself caught drug deals and sent the people responsible to prison?

Techniavally I've never sent anyone to prison but yes we have caught drug deals in progress and have had those responsible arrested.

Cool! Its like watching crime tv shows "Caught on Tape!" on AXN, but in your case, its live! Part of me envies you and your job.

It a pretty sweet job, I'm just hoping that I can get into BCLC or another government security/ surveillance job in the future because I'd rather not go back to school.

Do the casinos do a reaserch of their high roller bets people, like if they know that the money they are playing came from a drug cartel un México por something like that??

Sorry my english is not so good, because spanish is my native lenguage.

Well not that in-depth, but it's definetly looked at. If we know that all the money someone is bringing into the casino is drug money, and we have solid proof, that person will be banned and/or charged under the criminal code.

If shit goes down then you have to be focused and quick to get pictures of faces, license plates and such.

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I then went back on footage to see her shitting herself on the slot floor.

Okay so this is what i don't understand, if you are able to go back on the footage, (implying that the cameras are recording, atleast for a little while, instead of just streaming to a monitor)

Why do you need to be quick to get the pictures? Can't you just go back to get them?

Also how long do you keep recorded footage before it being deleted?

The footage is kept for 12 days I believe, other than the incidents we save for good.

All the cameras are recording all the time, so if something happens and I don't see it (Very likely as I have a lot to watch at one time) then we would go back and save the footage captured of the incident.

When I say that you would have to be quick when something dire happens is because from far away the cameras don't always grab a good picture of the face/vehicle/License plate # so I would have to be quick to react and zoom in at the correct angle and such to get an excellent picture for our files.

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Approximately 100, Its a smaller place as I've said so we only have one guy on at a time. Bigger casinos have two or three people on shift that monitor 200-300 cameras. They also may have one guy dedicated to watching one or two card tables and that's all he does.

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Basically we just look for stuff that's out of the norm, people that look suspicious, things that aren't in the right place. We call it JDLR, just doesn't look right.

How long does it take newbies to the field to pick up a decent JDLR sense?

Takes a while but if you have solid street sense you'd pick it up fast enough. I basically think of it as if you were walking down an alley at night and a guy with baggy pants and a long bright shirt was walking the opposite way as you, would you be careful of him? Of course you would. Where as an old 87 year old lady wouldn't get much attention because if I saw her in an alley I wouldn't be worried she was going to shoot me.

Why is it when a person is winning they get banned from the casino?

The only places that would happen is in casinos with extremely high limits where the player is winning on 25,000$ hands over and over. This is called a whale and they would be banned after cashing out because the casino basically doesn't want to give them any more money. Casinos aren't like the cops, we can basically ban anyone for anything as long as we come up with a good reason to tell them. In Canada they pretty well never ban anyone for winning too much because no one wins too much, that only happens in Vegas and places like Atlantic city.

i work in a casino too as a dealer and again to add to this answer, if people win a lot they don't wanna ban them because there gonna come back and try again another day and eventually it all comes back. a casinos best friend is time

Right, as I say we don't do that ever so I'm just going off of what I've heard from others in the industry.

We don't have tables in our casino because were considered a 'Gaming center'

If there aren't any table games, is there anything different about your job than watching security cameras at any other workplace?

Yes, the main difference is how we report things to BCLC/government. When anything important or dire happens, we report to the governing bodies with a computer program and that lets them know what happened, who's banned and why. Other than that, security guards that watch cameras usually have to investigate anomalies themselves, if anything happens while I'm watching I inform security and they investigate. I never have to leave my office.

How much do you get paid and how does someone get into a casino surveillance job?

We make about 17$/h.

To get a job in a casino as security or surveillance you would start by getting a security license, I don't know how it works in the US but here in Canada you must have one to be in a security position. It's about 300$ for the course and the test is kind of difficult, lots of law stuff. Some companies will pay for it, others won't. Then just apply at all the casinos in your area.

How often do you look down girls shirts?

My cameras are all recorded so if I was constantly looking down girls shirts I would probably get a talking to. That said, I can place the cameras in such a way that it looks innocent when they walk by or stand in certain places and I can sometimes get a pretty good look. One time I could see full boobage and on the recordings it looked like I did nothing wrong because I didn't.

Lol awesome! Thanks for the reply op

Obligatory Canadian response:

No problem, buddy.

Hi there. Just wanted to ask if you sit behind a PC or in the front like a boss?

Security is at the front, surveillance is in a separate office with multiple PC's. All the PC's are used for different things but most of them are running screens with cameras displayed.

Will you give me $20?

So you can gamble with it? I'd rather you buy drugs as long as its not on our property. So yea I'll give you 20$

I was gonna spend it on gas and food, but drugs seems like a good change of pace.

I guess that would be a tiered list from best to worst uses.

-food and gas -drugs -gambling

Why do I have to be gambling on the casino floor? Or at least watching? I was on my phone and security escorted me out

We wouldn't do that, they were just worried about you taking pictures/videos of the machines/gamblers. Next time sit at a machine that's not busy and use your phone and they will probably leave you alone. Also point the phone at the ground, not at your surroundings.

Do people who try to cheatbthe jouse still have "unfortunate accidents"? Granted the mob don't really rum casinos any more, but surely there are a few casino bosses who wish they were mob bosses right?

I'm sure it happens off the books but not in our casino.

There is new tech where you can match a face and see their personal data. Is your industry looking that way?

Yes actually, a lot of casinos have the system that recognizes faces/license plates and our casino is supposed to be installing this in the near future. It will be awesome because then were assured that there is no one in the casino that shouldn't be, because it is possible to sneak in if you're banned if the staff don't know you.

How often do people actually win?

Quite often but you always have to think: how much money did they spend to get that jackpot?

Do you have a "that guy" story, where someone in your line of works screws up SOOO badly that from then on no one wants to make a mistake and end up like "THAT guy"?

We had one guy that would not shut the fuck up. Literally would sit there and talk and talk and talk about random bullshit like spirits and Jesus and other crap that no one wants to talk about. It got so bad at one point where me and the rest of the employees avoided being around him. He eventually went to the boss and asked him if everyone hated him, I'm pretty sure the boss didn't confirm nor deny. He no longer works with us because he got a new job somewhere else and quit on the spot hahaha.so basically if you're talking too much about non-sense, you're 'that guy'.

hey, firstly, how are you? How often do you catch cheats/thefts etc....oh and what's the quantum mechanics behind the universe?

I'm excellent, we rarely miss anything. We don't have any cheats but we almost always catch people that are dealing drugs/fighting/causing shit.

And I'm not sure about the mechanics but the answer is 42.

Surveillance for a large chain of tribal casinos here. Man that joystick looks pretty out of date, we have the new pelcos with a bunch of different leds on it. No table games huh? What tier is your casino? I work at a tier c, we have multiple table games plus a blackjack pit, and several hundred gaming machines.

Yea our whole system is out of date because bclc is cheap but it all does the job relatively well.

Not sure what you mean by tier, were considered a gaming facility so its kindof like being zoned as say commercial and you cant have a house there, were zoned as bingo and slots and can't have tables unless rezoned if that makes any sense. We have about 200 slots and 100 bingo terminals.

How does it feel to be a big brother & a possible employee for the NSA? Yea, yea, yea, it's "doing my job", it's the job requirement for the casino, it's the normal thing to do... not talking about all of that.

During your work, do you find time to play Solitaire due to boredom, on the computer or laptop? After all, you're watching a bunch of people (mostly old ones, I presume) staring at some flashing machines that were designed to get, rather than give, money. From time to time, an idiot sparking trouble and the excitement to hit him or passive-aggressive torturing him. Anything else... it seems boring.

Really, "officer"? I understand that every one of us is somewhat proud and a lil', tiny, bit entitled to our job (I know the feeling) after a while but you're still "that guy" looking at different people without their consent during their weak moments (excluding the SOBs that cheat, start fighting or causing other problems), while being rumoured to have lube on his right and napkins on his left. To consider yourself an "officer"... tsk, very, very difficult and overly proud; no different than those who "protect" bridges while imagining they're the last bastion of defense for the universe.

For the NSA? I'm in Canada.

I basically go on Reddit when I'm bored, I'm horrible at solitaire. Pretty much all the people that are in here in the morning are old, around 5pm is when the younger crowd tend to come in.

I was merely stating what my position is called, we are security trained with a course called the GSO (Gaming security officer) so technically I am an officer of sorts. I'm not super proud of this job like an RCMP would be of their job, but it's a living and a pretty easy/interesting job. I definitely didn't make this post to boast, just figured some people might find it interesting.

Also when you enter an establishment like a casino or government buildings, you can assume you are being watched on cameras. They are basically for your own safety, as cliché as that sounds.

For the NSA? I'm in Canada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5onkl2EHV4

Checkmate :D

That was awesome. This is a light house, mate.