Inside Asian Gaming

38 on expanding the system to additional new facilities on the property. Extra extras Casinos are also adopting security and surveillance software platforms, which help in reducing losses and managing risk through the rapid identification of individu- als involved in loss, threat creation and other specific activities. Earlier this year, North American Video was awarded integrated video security and surveillance systems design and installation contracts from MGM Grand in Detroit, Isle of Capri in Pompano, Fla., and Harrah’s in Ches- ter Downs, Pa., along with phase two of the massive system recently installed at the new Wynn Casino in Macao. M. Malia and Associ- ates are designing the security and surveil- lance systems for these casino projects. The various systems will incorporate a variety of IT, digital and analog technologies and vendor partner products that will be integrated and installed by North American Video teams. Partner products will include video surveillance solutions from American Dynamics, system management hardware and software solutions from Honeywell, video surveillance and control services from Nice Systems, and network and digital video recorders from Sanyo. Meanwhile, Sandia Resort & Casino has tapped iView’s iTrak incident reporting and risk management software, and its Lost & Found and Gaming modules, to provide a complete end-to-end security and surveil- lance solution. The iTrak platform includes a daily log, briefing log, full incident reporting, subject profiling, personnel management, vehicle tracking, contacts and administra- tion for comprehensive user,group and prop- erty security management. The iTrak system provides Sandia’s se- curity and surveillance departments with a complete integrated risk management tool. It replaces traditional inefficient and unreli- able paper-based systems, and enables pur- chasing of relevant modules required for a specific application environment. The Lost & Found module maintains lost reports and matches them against large found item da- tabases. An operator can review lost reports and found items while managing their return or disposal with complete ID and signature capture options.The gamingmodule delivers a standardized system for performing audits of customizable policy and procedural viola- tions for gaming activities, such as dealer, player and departmental audits, while providing comprehensive reporting on these activities. Decentralized Surveillance at Venetian Macao The Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel features one of the world’s largest fully digital casino video surveillance systems. Phase one of the system consists of both fixed and movable cameras to monitor the casino, restaurants and the hotel. The system will also monitor cameras installed in 2004 at the nearby Sands Macau Casino. Later phases of the project will see additional video systems from nearby Las Vegas Sands Corp resorts on the Cotai Strip tied in to the system. The system’s decentralized recording is car- ried out by Dallmeier USA’s modular audio/ video recording and transmission systems. These units allow the resort to simultaneous- ly record and transmit live video signals and replay recorded video. Because the system records directly to integrated storage, the Venetian Macao is able to ensure maximum uptime and data availability, even if its net- work experiences problems or failures. This decentralized storage concept also reduces bandwidth requirements. Compared to centralized recording solutions, the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel found that the cost advantage of a decentralized system was approximately three to one be- cause of the resources required for storage, network and fail-safe reliability within a centralized system.