Playing for Keeps
Oklahoma casinos take it all in with advanced surveillance system
- By Megan Weadock
- Jan 03, 2008
Everyone in the security industry who has visited a casino has
probably marveled at the level of preparation and care it must
take to safeguard a gaming facility. Almost anything can happen
at a casino, and security officials’ day-to-day challenges
include attempts at cheating, slip-and-fall claims, underage guests, violence
and crime. Add to this the inherently challenging conditions of a
casino—flashing lights, crowds and plenty of noise—and it becomes
clear that providing proper surveillance at a casino is a chore.
To lessen the problems and expense associated with frequent and
unexpected security issues, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma has made
an advanced surveillance system a top priority in its Broken Bow,
Durant and Pocola casinos. And as the casinos have grown in size and
popularity over the years, the need for a reliable system has become
increasingly important.
Hard Evidence
“It’s all about clarity,” said Dan Breshears, executive director of the public
safety division, in charge of law enforcement, security, surveillance
and integration projects for the Choctaw Nation. “People walk into a casino
and see dollar signs. It’s all about, ‘How can I get their money?’”
Breshears said the three casinos were seeing several slip-and-fall
claims each week, creating an opportunity for customers to take advantage
of the Choctaw Nation.
“Some of the false claims, without [video surveillance] data, could
easily go the other way,” he said. “Anybody can sue anybody. Because
we’re a nation within a nation, most of our outside cases go to a federal
entity—so we needed reliable video data.”
Breshears, who has a background in law enforcement, knew the casinos
needed to be able to provide clear and high-quality video evidence to
avoid being held liable for guests’ frequent slip-and-fall claims. As the
number of customers increased in each casino, the security team also had
to be prepared for an associated increase in crime and violence.
Breshears chose Petards to provide new cameras and a Universal
Video Management System (UVMS) for Pocola Casino and Durant
Casino. At Broken Bow Casino, however, Choctaw Nation would go in
another direction: They would create a complete, end-to-end IP system.
Working Together
Petards, which is headquartered in Baltimore, Md., designs, manufactures,
supplies and supports digital surveillance and security systems.
Their UVMS is often used in high-traffic facilities, such as arenas, rail
stations and city centers.
“UVMS excels in environments where there’s live monitoring and
lots of cameras to view,” said Frank Baitman, president of Petards.
“The usability plays a key role in making UVMS the best solution for
live monitoring. You can simply move around hundreds of cameras to
find what you’re looking for. If there’s a particular scene you’re looking
to view from different angles, you can drag and drop all of the pertinent
cameras while synchronizing them to view the same scene at
the same time.”
At Durant Casinos, the Petards UVMS works with both analog and
IP cameras—600 CoVi cameras, which are positioned over the gaming
tables, and 212 IP cameras, including megapixel, PTZ and PoE cameras,
from AXIS and IQinVision. The open architecture of the system
allows Choctaw to freely choose the cameras for each part of the casinos,
regardless of manufacturer.
“Open standards have been a key design decision behind UVMS
since it was launched. Customers who are locked in to proprietary solutions
are betting that the recording solution will continue to integrate
new technologies as they’re invented. But we allow our customers to
mix and match cameras and encoders with UVMS’s open platform.
That way, UVMS future-proofs customer sites,” Baitman said.
Although Pocola Casino also received a UVMS, Broken Bow is the
casino that has become a surveillance system showcase. The facility
received all IP cameras, the IP recording solution and an IP access station
and video wall. The casino features more than 200 cameras, recording
at 1.3 megapixels or greater and at 30 fps on the UVMS.
“We knew that IP cameras were offering images that blew away the
average analog camera, but we were a bit hesitant when Dan
[Breshears] told us he intended to put in an all-IP casino,” Baitman said.
“But his experience with UVMS gave him the confidence that it would
be an unmatched surveillance system, and his vision was right.”
To compensate for the difficult lighting conditions in each casino,
many of the cameras feature automatic iris control, which allows the iris
aperture to change and maintain optimum light level to the image sensor.
This is critical for capturing quality video images in the casino.
Also, each system is on Choctaw’s network, allowing security officials
to access surveillance data remotely and from PCs.
Faster Than Ever
“Perhaps the greatest praise for UVMS that I’ve heard comes from the
surveillance technicians,” Baitman said. “When there’s something
that’s just happened, they say they can conduct a forensic evaluation of
the event in a half hour, while their old system took as long as three to
five days.”
Breshears, who says UVMS has proven to be extremely user friendly,
has seen similar results.
“The system makes things move smoother, and we’re always able to
get a good idea of what happened,” Breshears said. “We just punch in
the time something happened, burn the video off and send it over to our
insurance guy or law enforcement. We can review a case, even before
we get officers in, and we can see the data that shows whether or not to
prosecute. Before, the clarity to be able
to do that just wasn’t there.”