Casino Security: Surveillance Integration Trends for 2023

The global casino management system market is predicted to grow by over 14% by 2029¹, with surveillance technology accounting for around a quarter of the total market value.

What surveillance integration trends will help drive growth and be a key priority for casino surveillance managers in 2023? Here, Sree Namelil, Product Manager, gives his view.

Prioritising Point-of-Sale (POS)

Certainly not a new kid on the block, but given the importance of POS integration as part of a casino’s security system, it deserves its place on any list of essential solutions for the year ahead.

As much as 70%² of casino revenue now comes from non-gaming sales making food, drink, and other retail POS areas vital to profitability. But they’re also at risk of theft and fraud.

By integrating timestamped POS data with surveillance footage, casino operators can investigate suspicious monetary transactions, such as multiple voided transactions, significant discounts, and unusual comp activity. What’s more, by applying rules based on specific parameters, such instances can be proactively flagged for attention – a good example being when a comp or refund is issued but no customer is in line.

Facial recognition in focus

The use of facial recognition in casinos is not yet widespread. But it is growing at pace, with many properties seeing the genuine benefits of integrating surveillance with AI-driven facial recognition platforms to monitor persons of interest in real-time.

By far, the most prominent application to date is using facial recognition to manage access. Footage from casino entrances is matched against block lists to prevent the entry of excluded persons known to have cheated, committed crimes or perpetrated fraud. Increasingly, properties are also now using facial recognition for face-to-photo verification to prevent underage players from gaining access and to support addicts on self-exclusion lists.

While these applications will continue to be the focus of facial recognition adoption in 2023, we are also likely to see properties already using facial recognition and explore other applications – including VIP tracking, to enable more personalised customer experiences.

Expanded analytics suite

The use of analytics-based integrations isn’t limited to facial recognition. And in 2023, we are likely to see properties leverage value by adopting a broader suite of integrated analytics systems.

Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) may be considered an ‘entry level’ analytics application but remains important. It is also increasingly being paired with facial recognition as part of more sophisticated identity management solutions, meaning management can be alerted when specific vehicles enter parking structures.

At the other end of the scale, video analytics enables detailed, real-time metadata searches, e.g., locating and tracking potential criminal or active shooter movements, which are also receiving greater interest. Especially for large-scale properties and integrated resorts.

Integrating gaming table and slot data

While some gaming surveillance trends are relatively consistent regardless of geography, others can vary depending on global location. Integrating specific gaming table and slot machine data with surveillance management solutions is a good example.

Most common across Asia, this integration allows surveillance teams to reference data that ‘doesn’t quite add up’ with visual footage to investigate potential instances of cheating or collusion. With the help of rules and alerts, the system can ‘search for’ statistical anomalies – from numbers coming up too often on roulette tables to slots paying out above-average thresholds – and match this with related video content for analysis.

Given that the UNLV now estimates that casinos make upward of 80% of their gaming revenue via slots and that games such as Baccarat are growing in popularity in the US (figures for June 2022 showed baccarat growth up by 237%), it certainly makes sense that this is one integration that we’ll see gain more traction in the coming year.

¹ Casino Management System Market
² Reported by Gaming & Leisure magazine Summer 2022