History of the Surveillance Function in Casinos

By Brian R. Ford
Global Director of Services to the Gaming Industry
Ernst & Young LLP

The heritage of early casinos in Nevada was that their owners did not trust anyone. In these early casinos law enforcement was pretty sparse. In this by gone era, individual casino owners would employ “reformed” card cheats who would crawl around catwalks in the ceilings over the casino floor to observe dealers, supervisors and players to help detect or prevent cheating. As an immature industry, cheating was commonplace. Customers worried that casinos were cheating them as much as casinos worried that their employees and customers were cheating the house. As the licensing and regulatory environment changed to protect the player, so did technology.

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