This is a very interesting story from the LV Sun:
Gaming board agents have made nearly 400 arrests in connection with casino and gambling-related crimes in Nevada this year, compared with fewer than 300 for all of 2008.Regulators can’t explain the uptick, especially given that law enforcement resources to combat theft haven’t increased amid budget cuts. It’s logical, then, to assume that the poor economy may be leading more people to steal, said Jerry Markling, the Gaming Control Board’s enforcement chief.Casino security consultant Willy Allison, who trains surveillance workers and founded the World Game Protection conference, says casinos nationwide have reported increased theft yet are frustrated in their efforts to catch criminals because of workforce cutbacks. Casino managers, Allison said, are increasingly concerned about their own workers, as low morale and ever-present cash make casinos ripe for employee theft.“You’ve got staff on the floor whose tips have dropped 40 percent, they’re having trouble paying their mortgages and they don’t know whether they’ll have a job tomorrow,” he said. “You have opportunity, motivation and rationalization. People who were honest before the recession aren’t now, now that their children are starving.”
via In down economy, crimes against casinos are up – Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 | 2 a.m. – Las Vegas Sun.
This is a perennial problem that’s only been exacerbated by the economic downturn. No matter what security measures casinos put in place, someone will test them, and maybe succeed, for a while.
Partially, these are crimes of opportunity, but the fact that these are casinos also contributes. Because there are thousands (even millions) of dollars changing hands each day on the casino floor, many criminals feel like “it’s not really stealing.” Casinos promote the idea that they are wild places where anything can happen. That’s true, and this is the downside: people cheating and stealing.
Some people think that there is a technological or procedural solution out there. I don’t think there is. Good surveillance is effective as a forensic tool and as a deterrent for many people, but others will just play the odds and assume that the eye in the sky is mid-blink when their hand is in the till. No matter what the breakthrough–better cameras, RFID chips, biometric software–people will still try to take things that aren’t theirs. The only answer is to continue to investigate suspicious activity and catch the offenders.
Until people have limitless resources, they will always have an incentive to cheat or steal. Some people, even if they had everything they wanted, would still try to do it just for the thrill, or out of spite. In other words, casino surveillance and security, even though it isn’t a “revenue-producing department,” is probably a growth field no matter what the economy is doing.