New technology spots casino cheats, crooks

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Apr 27, 2001 by Dickinson, Casey J

MORRISVILLE - No longer just a face in the crowd, casino cheats may have nowhere to hide, thanks to new facialrecognition technology. Students in the casino studies program at SUNY Morrisville are learning to spot known cheaters and suspected criminals by using a database-linked video system that can match a subject's facial characteristics against a file of known offenders. The technology is part of the growing field of biometrics, identifying people by the individual characteristics of their body parts.

The system combines high-resolution security cameras and computer technology to measure facial characteristics, such as the distance between a person's eyes. The individual measurements create a unique profile that can identify a person "on sight" with relative certainty much like a facial fingerprint. The computer can "see through" disguises by using multiple measurements to compare a face.

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

The technology, donated by Biometrica, Inc., is used in casinos around the world to spot gaming cheaters and other undesirables before they cause trouble. Thanks to the company's generosity, Morrisville's students can train on the $26,000 equipment in the classroom while they learn to spot cheaters. Sophisticated surveillance cameras peer 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 trains the camera on this reporter, suspiciously lingering at the end of the craps table.

LaMacchia, playing the role of a casino security boss, decides the suspicious character deserves a closer look. He takes the image Hanns has captured and "enrolls" it in the database, using the Biometrica Facial Recognition computer program.

The enrollment begins with fixing the center of the eyes on the image. The Biometrica program can automatically locate the center of the pupils or the operator can perform the operation manually. The program then creates a computerized "mask" of the subject's face that can be matched with future images in a database.

Security personnel also complete an enrollment record that accompanies the image. The record contains information from the subject's name and height on down to his particular method of cheating.

Students take their turns operating the equipment during class, trying to catch their instructor cheating Other lessons have students attempting to fool the equipmerit by wearing disguises. In the classroom, the "cheaters" include fellow students who have bogus enrollment forms in the system, marking them as cheaters for the other students to root out.

In addition to manual identification, the camera and computer combination can be set to automatically identify suspect individuals, says LaMacchia. A camera trained on a chokepoint, such as the casino entrance, can scan the faces of those entering against known images in the database at the rate of 250,000 images every four seconds.

Though the system is aimed at catching gaming cheats before they can get away with the casino's money, facial recognition can have many other uses. Law-enforcement officials used the Biometrica system to scan the Super Bowl crowd for criminals during this year's game in Tampa. Many casinos, says LaMacchia, use the systems in their hotel areas to identify persons banned from the property.

Gaming-technology companies sell computerized files of banned persons, primsarily cheaters, for use with biometric recognition systems.

Not all the banned people are cheaters, says LaMacchia. Some problem gamblers, he says, voluntarily submit themselves for banishment, asking casino security personnel not to let them enter.

Because of security concerns, casinos are reluctant to discuss their anti-cheating measures.

Though technology is making the cheater's job more difficult, says LaMacchia, security is always a continuing issue in casino management.

"There's always somebody trying to beat the security," he says.

LaMacchia spent 25 years working in the gaming industry, moving to Central New York to help set up the Oneida Nation's Turning Stone Casino before becoming an educator.

SUNY Morrisville's casino studies program, says LaMacchia, is the only one of its type, though the University of Nevada at Las Vegas incorporates some of the same subjects as part of a hospitality degree. First winning state approval in 1998, the program has grown to 45 students this year. The program covers every aspect of operations from dealing the cards to managing a property. State regulators and law-enforcement officials attend gaming seminars ran by LaMacchia as part of their job training.

The program operates within Morrisville's hospitality program. LaMacchia stresses the importance of the gaming sector as one part of the overall hospitality picture.

The gaming industry has been very supportive of the casinostudies program, says David Rogers, dean of Momisville's School of Business.