Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Should Poker and Casino Cheats Have More Fear of Video Surveillance Technology As It Improves?

Not really. No matter how much improvement is made to video technology and casino surveillance systems, in 99% of cheating cases in poker rooms and casinos, the evidence gathered by one surveillance camera is about the same that would have been filmed by another, all else being equal. For example, a new video technology by Milestone Systems claims that with a few quick clicks, surveillance personnel can control a hundred or more cameras simultaneously and see live or archived images from multi-servers at once. And that all this is very easy to forward to casino cops as evidence. Then with the video including sound, professional casino and poker cheat teams can be heard exchanging signals, but that is impossible to improve and always subject to subjective interpretation.

This all sounds daunting, but none of it changes the golden rule about how much poker and casino cheats should fear video and audio evidence. That rule is the best video and audio surveillance systems are only as good as the human beings connected to them. This is the reason I was never afraid of cameras in casinos while I cheated their pants off.