Interesting story in today's New York Times "Circuits" section about how casinos are using better camera, software and computer chips in chips to better rate players (for comps and card counting) and dealers (for speed, mistakes, etc.). Not capable yet of use in craps and roulette, just blackjack and similar games. I predict that eventually they will do away with chips for table games. Each player will have his own slot machine-like console to reord bets, wins and balances! The new chips cost three times more than current chips. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/25/technology/circuits/25gamb.html?pagewanted=1 Look:

March 25, 2004

For the Pit Boss, Some Extra Electronic Eyes
By JOSHUA TOMPKINS

CASINO operators have long understood that the best way to keep their guests gambling happily is to provide free goods and services, known in the business as comps. The offer of a deluxe hotel suite, for example, might convince a high roller to visit a casino regularly.

Conversely, seasoned gamblers have learned how to milk the system. They make themselves look like high rollers to reap the most rewards for the least effort. They slap down big wagers when the pit bosses are looking and pad the time they spend at the tables (a significant factor in the fuzzy math of comping) by taking long bathroom breaks or sitting out rounds.

But this kind of maneuvering may soon become obsolete as computerized systems begin to automate the way casinos track, rate and reward patrons. The technologies can instantly count every chip a player wagers and remember every card dealt, enabling operators to mete out comps more equitably.

One such system is being tested at the Las Vegas Hilton, where a dozen blackjack tables have been outfitted with a device made by MindPlay, a company based in Bellevue, Wash. The system, called the MP21, uses an array of 14 concealed cameras as well as image-recognition software to capture and count all wagers. A special shuffling shoe records the cards dealt. Each player's statistics are recorded through a casino-issued identity card that a dealer swipes at the table. (The MP21 system can also track of players without cards.)

In most casinos today, managers track and rate players by hand, using pens and clipboards. It is an imprecise, labor-intensive chore and one reason that the overhead cost of table games exceeds that of slot machines, which have gradually occupied more floor space at casinos over the last two decades.

"The problem with ratings on table games is that you have one supervisor, and he may be watching three or four tables and he may be rating multiple people on each table," said Jimmy Wike, who was the Las Vegas Hilton's vice president for casino operations when the MindPlay tables were installed in December 2002. He is now the vice president for table games operations at Caesar's Palace. "I won't say we do a woefully inadequate job," he said, "but we are not always completely accurate."

By contrast, the MP21 system maintains a level of vigilance that no human can match. It takes notice when a particular gambler alone at a table is playing 120 hands an hour at a 1.5 percent disadvantage (in other words, fast and poorly), recognizing that he is more valuable to the house than another player who bets slowly and skillfully. The pit manager can call up this information on a tablet PC; he can monitor any game in real time and can calculate a gambler's statistics for the last hour, the last 30 days or since the day the player's casino account was opened.

The technology can also spot card counters, whose tactic of periodically raising their bets for no apparent reason would eventually prompt the system to alert the manager.

Mr. Wike said visitor response to the MP21 tables had been positive.

But Rob Wise, the managing editor of Casino Player magazine, said he suspected that some gamblers might resent being watched by the house. "I would guess that experienced players would be uncomfortable with this technology," he said.

Many might not notice it. At the Las Vegas Hilton, the MP21 tables are situated among conventional blackjack tables on the crowded casino floor. Their only physical distinction is a slim, featureless black console that conceals the cameras in front of the dealer's chip tray. On the console is a small liquid-crystal display where the dealer logs players in and out, but little other input is required.

At the MP21 tables, blackjack is played the standard way, with players sipping cocktails and chatting between rounds while the dealer sorts chips or reloads the shoe.

"This game looks like blackjack, feels like blackjack, and their ultimate experience is not different at a MindPlay table than it would be at a conventional table," said George Harbachuk, the vice president for business relations at MindPlay.

The system also helps the casino gauge each dealer's performance by flagging errors and calculating what is known as dealer occupancy - the net number of players acquired or lost at a table during a shift.

"You know who your game builders are, you know who your game destroyers are," Mr. Wike said. "You know who makes the most mistakes, who makes the least."

The MP21's optical method isn't the only new way to keep tabs on games. TableLink, a system made by Mikohn Gaming of Las Vegas, uses chips containing radio-frequency tags that record each wager. When a player puts chips in the betting circle, a transceiver under the table detects the amount and adds it to the player's computerized tally. The first full-scale installation of TableLink was completed in January at the Grand Casino Coushatta in Kinder, La., where the system is in use at 70 of its 82 tables. While the MP21 works only with blackjack and pai gow poker so far, the TableLink system is compatible with most games except craps and roulette.

Unlike the MindPlay MP21, TableLink does not record the cards dealt to each player, which limits the system's ability to judge skill levels. But the company says a card-reading shuffler is in the works.

Large casinos might balk at replacing as many as 100,000 chips with the radio-tagged variety, which cost nearly three times as much. And both the Mikohn and MindPlay systems face other formidable hurdles in Las Vegas. At many casinos there, "the pit guys are a little apprehensive," Mr. Richards said. "These are people who've been in the business for a long time."

He said that a typical TableLink installation, which costs $1 million to $2 million, could pay for itself in as little as a year in comp savings. MindPlay officials and representatives of the Las Vegas Hilton declined to disclose the price of an MP21 network, but Mr. Harbachuk said the system could shave 25 percent off a casino's comp budget.

"It's definitely the wave of the future," Mr. Wike said. "I routinely get calls from other operators asking me how the test is going." He said he had no doubt that computerized table games would be the norm - eventually. "In the gaming industry, three to five years is a short period of time," he said.

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