Casino Surveillance Pro

I had a reader ask, so here is the house rules at the single deck Blackjack game that we offer at the casino that I deal at. I've also included a basic strategy chart for those rules.You should know that our table limits are very low, usually $5 to $50 per hand. And unless there's only one player at the table we shuffle after just two rounds. A single player will be able to get in 3 rounds before a shuffle.  This low deck penetration pretty much negates any advantage play techniques that a player might use, such as card counting or tracking Aces.  But, if you know your basic strategy, and especially know how to use surrender properly, it's not a bad game. A 1.5% house advantage is actually pretty good these days. Especially in a table with only a $5 minimum bet. No I'm not going to tell you exactly where I work, but without too much trouble you should be able to figure it out. I will tell you that it's in Northern Nevada, as opposed to the Vegas area. Anyway  here ...

So last month I posted about some questions that I get from people when they find out what my job is. This is the follow-up to that post and it’s mostly going to be about what cheating from the inside, or cheating by the dealer, would look like if it was going on. The easiest way for a dealer to cheat, on the player’s behalf, would be simply to dump the game. Dumping the game is when you pay the player for a losing hand or overpay the player on a winning hand. If you’re in surveillance and you happen to see this happen oh, the best thing you can do is keep quiet at least for a moment or two and see if it continues. It’s possible that the dealer just made a mistake and paid a losing Hand by mistake. If you continue to watch you’ll see if he’s doing it on a regular basis and if so if he’s doing it to a specific player. This would indicate collusion, or a conspiracy between the player and one or more players to do so. It’s always best to have plenty of information and evidence before movi...

OK, so i havent been blogging as much for the last month or so. Here’s why.  I am back to dealing blackjack and it is taking up a lot of my time. I got a new job at a small, northern Nevada casino (you could track me down without too much trouble, but i am not going to just come out an tell you which one) as a dual rate Manager on Duty and Dealer. Having not dealt cards for over three decades, I have had to do some on the job training to get back in shape.  It’s not quite like riding a bike, in that you never forget how to do it, but it is close. Having spent many of those years in surveillance I still have the mental chops to do it, but the muscle memory is long gone. Throw in some arthritis in my knees (plus chronic leukemia) and standing at a table for 40-60 minutes at a time has been a challenge also.  But enough about my troubles, what I really want to talk about is the “typical” blackjack player that I have been running in to. If I were going to describe them in jus...

I went to a sales seminar recently, in conjunction with one of the jobs that I have. it wasn't a bad seminar, but it wasn't great one either. It got me thinking that I could probably do just as good a job. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Here is my thesis:  Everything in life is advertising or marking. Let me tell you what I mean. From the very first time a pre-teen or teenager discovers that they get more attention from the opposite sex by looking pretty or muscular, or batting their eyes at the right time, or being on the football team, they become an expert marketeer. Later in life it will become virtue signaling when, at a job or a bar or in graduate school or at an interview wherever, they will discover the day can attract potential mates and or friends or an employer, simply by espousing the right causes, the right beliefs or the right motives. Whether it be a Super Bowl ad or a job interview almost every thing in life is marking. Wether  you're ma...

I had another great question submit it to me by email. This reader wanted to know what, if anything, I knew about loss prevention. I assume that he meant at local retail stores, although most large hotel casinos will have gift shops and other retail or point-of-sale locations, where surveillance may perform loss prevention duties in conjunction with security. It turns out I know quite a bit about the loss prevention landscape out there, having work for a large retailer doing loss prevention in the 90s. I won't say the exact name of this retailer, but their name rhymes with small heart. You figure it out. What I learned from them, and what I have learned subsequently to that, is that while surveillance and loss prevention may be necessary to the operation of a large retail store, just as they are in a casino, they are not something that management or ownership wants to spend any money on. All gaming jurisdictions require casinos to have a certain level of surveillance, by law. Th...

I woke this morning to the news that Anthony Bourdain was found dead in France overnight at the age of 61. Very, very sad news. Although I disagreed with him politically, on almost every issue imaginable, I enjoyed watching you show and reading his words. I love stories about people who find success, fame and wealth later in life. Especially when they were leading what could be called a marginal life beforehand, as Bourdain had admitted to. No one I can think of had a better rags-to-riches story than Anthony Bourdain. He found celebrity and fortune all after the age of 40, having been a drug addict and self confessed "loser" beforehand. I can relate. His story gives me hope, that I may someday make a little something out of my life. Maybe it can start by writing this blog about the work that I am passionate about........

Just did a new radio show and podcast yesterday, my first show in over a month due to illness. The podcast is available here . Since I haven't been on the air since before the tragic Las Vegas shooting, I feel like I need to comment on what role surveillance and security would have played in the response to the active shooter in addition to how they would gather information about the shooters whereabouts and movements prior to the incident. So that's what this show is about. It will have to be a two-parter, with the second part airing next week. You can listen live on the internet here or locate the podcast later from the same link as above. The show airs on 1180 AM KCKQ in Reno, live on Tuesdays at 4:30 PM PST (-8 GMT).

I had a question comes my way about the recent , tragic shooting at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas. This person wanted some insight as to the response of security and surveillance during and immediately after such an incident. I figured that this subject may be of interest to many of you out there, so here is my response. First of all, here are some physical facts about surveillance cameras, security operations and surveillance operations at the larger casinos, both in Las Vegas and all around the world. Most casinos have two separate surveillance rooms. One of the rooms, is manned by surveillance personnel who are experts in all types of casino gaming and cheating. These are the people who actually watch the games, the money, the cashiers and count rooms, and do all the things that you think of as the "eye in the sky" doing. These surveillance agents will have access to every single camera on property. The other surveillance room will be manned by security personnel...

I got a chance to play some Blackjack on Friday night at my favorite low limit Casino. Only had $50 on me, which is what I bought him with, so it's a good thing that it was a $2 minimum table. I usually make my base bet $5 but tonight I made it just $2. Played for about half an hour, and the dealer was very hot, at least at first. She ran everyone off at the table, except for me,  after about 10 minutes. I enjoy playing one-on-one versus the dealer, but it is a real quick way to get fingered as a card counter when you are the only one at the table. Because of this, I basically just flat bet one hand at $2. The count never went very high anyway, so I didn't feel too bad.  Walked away down $10. No big deal but one thing happened that I want to talk about. Towards the end of my play, I hit a 14 vs. a ten, and busted.  When I flipped the cards over and they (accidentally) landed on top of each other, so that you could only see the face of one of the cards (a four). Now th...

Today we're going to discuss what I consider to be the top misplayed hand by your average blackjack player. And that is a hard 12 versus dealers 3 for an up card. A hard 12 is obviously not ever a good hand to get dealt, and whether you're playing single-deck, double deck or a shoe game the odds are against you. Your expected return for standing is negative 25% while you're expected return for hitting is negative 23%. Not a good situation either way, but if you're playing accurate basic strategy you really should hit. In the long run it will make a difference. A slight difference I know but a difference none the less. However if you're counting cards, you might have a bit of an insight. If your true count is negative then you know that there are more small value and neutral value cards remaining in the deck or shoe then 10 value cards. At this point you should hit without hesitation. Playing perfect basic strategy is all about the percentages and being consistent...

I am pleased to announce that I finally have gotten my own show on 1180 AM radio station KCKQ in Reno Nevada. The name of the show is Casino Confidential, and it will be about all things having to do with casinos and gambling with an emphasis on technology, surveillance and blackjack. The show premieres this afternoon, Tuesday, August 8th at 4 p.m. Pacific time, which is 11 p.m. (2300) GMT. In the Reno area you can tune in to 1180 a.m., or you can listen live on the internet at http://amm.streamon.fm I'm especially excited to announce that my first guest will be world renown Casino consultant Bill Zenger. Bill and I will be discussing the recent blackjack exploits of professional poker player Phil Ivey, plus what Russian hackers have been up to with slot machines. I will post a link on this blog later once I have an FTP site setup to download previous episodes. I will also eventually have the show on Apple iTunes and on Podbean. We will also get into other table games, slot ma...

Hi everyone. I haven't been doing much blogging recently, because I've started being on the radio on 1180am kckq in Reno Nevada. But I will be back soon blogging and also podcasting. Stay tuned, as they say in radio land. And check out this link to the podcasting Factory that I am going to be associated with. https://www.gurufast.com/gurufast-announces-podcast-factory

This post is a reprint about a video on Youtube.  It's all about todays electronic slot machines, their random number generators and how cheats are hacking them!  Click here to watch it And click here to visit my Patreon page. If you enjoy my content, and would like to see more of it more often, please consider becoming a patron. I am also looking at expanding into audio and video podcasts if I can get enough donations. 

I got another good question last week, from a reader wanting to know what a surveillance room is like, how it is laid out and how it is staffed and run.  So here goes. I have worked in surveillance departments at six different casinos in the last 25 years. Some very small (300 slots, 6 blackjack tables) and some very big (3000 slots, 60-70 table games of all kinds). When I started in the early 90's it was all VCRs and not all cameras were recorded all the time. We used a lot of "multi-plexers" and "quad screens". A multi-plexer used one VCR to display and record up to 16 screens on one monitor. Since the VCR still records at 30 frames per second, that meant that if you did a review on any one of those 16 screens you would be looking at a "freeze frame" effect, where you only got 1.8 frames per second of the shot you were looking at. A quad would record all four screens at 30 fps, but the size of the picture on the screen was 1/4 (obviously) of the to...

This post is sponsored by Amazon Prime .  You can get a free 30 day trial of  by clicking  here . Speaking of Amazon, they have some great books about how to win at blackjack, craps, and other casino games. Click on this link:  Good books about Casino gambling And don't forget about my article, called " Sports Betting: Advanced middle techniques for college and pro football wagering ." It's all about a way to bet on sports with very little risk but high potential rewards. Click  here  to go to the eBay listing. It's only $4.99 plus fifty cents shipping.  Now on to this weeks topic.  This is a repost from a year or so ago, but it's still good info, if I do say so myself. Whenever I meet people and tell them what my profession has been for the last 25 years, I always come away with the feeling that they equate card counting and advantage play as cheating. It is not, of course, as most of the readers of this blog undoubtedly know. It is just...

Greetings all, I have gotten some more recent (good) feedback from a reader who brought up some excellent questions that I would like to address here. The first observation is that most of my examples concern single deck games.  To that, I plead guilty. And I will do a better job of covering the double deck and shoe game. The reader also correctly pointed out that many of the rules that casinos use make card counting at double deck and shoe games not very effective. Rules such as double down only on 9, 10 or 11, and no double after split obviously increase the house advantage more than most counters care to accept.  Also, deck penetration can discourage counters as well. The last casino I worked for had the dealers on double deck games burn 24 cards at the top of deck. This keeps most serious counters from ever even sitting down at double deck games. For these reasons, I usually use single deck games as my examples, but will endeavor to use more multi deck examples in th...

I am not going to tell you how I know this, but I am sensing some blow back from certain segments of the gaming industry about what I am doing here. SO.... I am going to open up on that segment of the industry with both barrels.  I am going to reveal the dirty little secret about tribal gaming that none of them want the public to know.  This secret is a little outside the realm of blackjack and how surveillance watches it, so you will need to indulge me. So what's the secret? The "slot machines" in tribal casinos are ripping you off. Let me explain. In most corporate gaming locations in this country, like Nevada, Atlantic City and other jurisdictions where the casino is owned by a corporation and not an Indian Tribe, the slots machines work this way: Each slot machine is basically a desktop computer. It has its own CPU, and a memory chip called an EEPROM that run the game and display the graphics that you see on the screen. Each machine has its own built in random numbe...

OK, here is how I would go about masking the fact that I am counting cards like a madman. Order a drink. At least it looks like a drink to surveillance. It can be a coke or club soda, of course, the camera cant tell the difference. It's not smell-o-vision. Engage the other people at the table. Laugh, smile, fist bump, high five and talk with the other players. Talk with the dealer. Flirt with the cocktail waitress. Be friendly, dont sit there stone faced with a 1000 yard stare watching each card as it is delivered or exposed.   Look away from the table once in a while. Especially if the cut card has come out or it is the last hand of a hand held game before the next shuffle. Try to appear relaxed and casual. By the way, you should never get caught off guard by a shuffle. Know the house rule, in this case, how deep the dealer should go in to the deck before shuffling. You dont want to put out a bet that is five or ten times your base bet, only to see the dealer start to s...

I was going to post more about count checks this week, but I got a question from a reader that i decided to answer instead. We'll get back to count checks next week. This readers question, request actually, is for me to outline what I do when I go out to play blackjack. And I will be happy to talk about that, with a couple of warnings. Even though I play baclkjack very seriously, I am not a professional player. There are very few people in the world that can legitimately lay claim to that title. But you can be a good player, maybe what the casino would call an advantage player, without being a professional. What separates a professional from everyone else, is usually the bankroll (which will be a small part of their total net worth) and the proper attitude. You have to have both, otherwise your betting decisions, along with your hit/stand decisions will be tempered by a fear of losing.  Your ability has to be top notch also, of course. You need incredible focus and observation...

This blog post is a reprint of one that I did about a year-and-a-half ago about count checks, and how they are usually done in a surveillance room. those of you who are new to my blog may not have read it yet, so enjoy And now a few words about count checks. Previously, I showed you some of the initial ways that surveillance will use to canalize your play at blackjack table.  Sometimes a lazy observer will just go with that, especially if you are being obvious. Like going from one hand at $25 to three at $500. They'll just call the pit boss or casino manager and let them know what "Captain Obvious" is up to on BJ 6.  You will then be asked to stop playing blackjack and try your luck at Keno or slots. Or Let it Ride. However, if a player is not being that obvious, an observer will initiate a count check. This involves using a PTZ to get a bet shot so they can tell exactly how much you are betting each hand. Then they use a worksheet or scratch paper to monitor the count,...