Con Artists Beware
Con Artists Beware - You're on Casino Camera!
Most poker players realize that, once they step into a casino, hidden cameras are watching them. Many may not know, though, that at any moment they might be part of a computerized criminal lineup via a facial recognition system. Facial recognition software falls into a larger group of technologies known as biometrics.
The field of biometrics uses biological information, such as a fingerprint or retina scan, voice identification, or facial recognition to verify a person's identity. Initially, the primary users of facial recognition software were law enforcement agencies, but over the past five years, more and more casinos have implemented the technology as part of the their quest to identify and catch cheaters.
Biometrica, the gaming industry leader in identification, tracking, and protection software, has over 170 casino clients all over the world, including Canada, Aruba, the Bahamas, and throughout the United States, including Puerto Rico. With a click of a button, a casino surveillance operator can freeze a videotaped image and check it against a database of computer photos of cheaters, crooks, grifters, and con artists.
Facial recognition software works by capturing an image of a person's face, known as a "faceprint." For example, if someone sits down at a poker table and looks suspicious, the floor can alert the surveillance team to zoom in and click a shot of him or her from various angles and obtain a still picture. The picture is automatically fed into the computer, which then creates a faceprint from the photo.
Faceprints are unique numerical maps of a face made up of nodal points. There are approximately 80 nodal points on a human face, including the distance between eyes, width of the nose, depth of eye sockets, cheekbones, jaw lines, and the chin. Nodal points are measured to create a numerical code that represents the face in a database. Once the system has stored a faceprint, it can compare it to other faceprints stored in various databases.
In the past, casino surveillance workers would have to manually look through thousands of pictures or scan video feed from the casino floor to try to identify potential cheaters. Often photos were faded, aged, or of poor quality. Casino surveillance teams are consistently challenged to identify these perpetrators of misdeeds in a timely manner, so that they can be caught before they flee the scene. The new technology takes only seconds to compare and match faceprints. In addition to speed, facial recognition technologies have another advantage over humans: They don't get tired.