Permanent Solution to Training Casino Surveillance Personnel.

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For ten years I have either been training casino surveillance, security and gaming regulation personnel on my own, or I have been helping others to do it.

I have done this for corporate casinos, privately owned casinos, Indian-country casinos, casinos in other countries, other training companies, and even for private individuals. In all of this time, the basic concept has been that trainers jealously guarded their materials–their “stock in trade”–including presentations, written materials and especially video materials of cheats and thieves and other crooked activity.

I subscribed heartily to this, because it seemed that, in a limited business niche like this, if one gave away one’s materials, soon one would no longer have a market.

I am sorry. This was  a short-term viewpoint, and had little or no regard for the actual needs of my clients.

We are now changing this basis of operation.

Recent events, including a collapsing economy, and the resultant collapse of businesses associated with casinos, has demanded a fresh look and a new concept.

Casino Surveillance News

is changing the way that training has been done
in this segment of the industry.

Why should consultants demand that casinos bring them back, in order for the casino to maintain a high standard of training in their Surveillance personnel?

Why continue to send people, at great expense, to training presentations in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Washington DC, or other casinos?

With the amount of personnel turnover in the casino business, the people I trained are very seldom in the same casino three or four years later. Some of them have been promoted, some have moved to higher positions in other casinos, and some have even gotten out of the employee relationship, just as I did. This would seem to require that trainers return, again and again, to casinos where they had been. Yet very seldom did this actually happen. The next time the casino surveillance staff needed  training, the casino either did it themselves, or brought in a different trainer, with no benefit whatever to the original one.

Outside training is expensive, and can seldom be justified when budgets are tight. Currently, training budgets for casinos, especially in Security and Surveillance, have never been tighter. In many places they have been cut out altogether. Travel budgets especially are tight, making it nearly impossible to send people to open enrollment seminars held in other locations.

So why guard those materials so jealously? Doing this simply ensures that no one ever gets the benefit of the years of experience, the video libraries, the articles and presentations painstaking written.

There are a few other things that have entered into this new concept.

Both the best of the places that I worked and the best of the places I trained had formal training programs for their Surveillance staff, with specific requirements which had to be met to qualify for promotions or pay raises. I contributed in the design of some of these programs. A program like these is in fact the only way for a Surveillance department to maintain its quality and reliability of performance without regularly scheduled, extremely expensive, outside training.

Without a standardized program, each casino had to basically re-invent the wheel for its training programs, and there was very little that could be universally applied, if a person went to a new casino as an operator/investigator, or accepted a promotion in another property, or even if he took on a new position working for the same company or tribe in a new casino.

I am introducing a new concept in training Surveillance and Security personnel. This idea is going to royally tick off some people, specifically other casino surveillance consultants and trainers. I am going to make it unnecessary for any more “return visits from the doctor” for training new or inexperienced surveillance personnel. I am going to make it possible for any casino to set standards for the training of all of its personnel and to maintain those standards despite personnel turnover.

I am no longer selling training seminars as such, except by special request.

What I am advocating and selling is complete casino surveillance and security training programs, designed to make a casino entity or gaming regulation and compliance staff self-sufficient in its training needs in these very sensitive fields.

What this means is that I will custom-design for a casino a permanent, self-sufficient surveillance training program, based on my own experience and the experience of people I have worked for, worked with and trained under, based on my studies of the law, of my own experience and the experience of people I have worked with, of cheats, scams, internal and external theft and cheating in the real casino world., and on two very workable permanent, in-place training programs that I have seen, contributed to and participated in.

The  best part of this is that the cost for such a program is  far less than the cost of sending ten people to outside training seminars, and less than the cost of bringing in trainers for a three-day training seminar, which maybe half of your people could actually attend. It is a permanent investment that gives you the materials to ensure that your own people are trained and very effective.

It requires no travel budget. It does not require rescheduling. It does not require overtime pay for required training.

You simply set aside a portion of each person’s day for training time, from two to five hours a week. Many of the classes can be completed in one hour, with an additional fifteen minutes for a test to ensure comprehension of the materials and ability to apply them in the real world.

Tests and answer sheets are included. Or you can design your own tests.

The program will take a person from green trainee up to the point where he is ready to manage a Surveillance department on his own, when combined with the actual experience he acquires over his years.

This is not a two-day or ten-day training seminar, with the trainer and his materials gone, maybe to be brought back years later.

This is all of the formal training a person will need, in place in the casino with all of the materials required, and it can be stretched out over two or three years. Staff will have ALL OF THE MATERIALS AVAILABLE FOR REFERENCE AND REVIEW, however many times it takes. All of the staff will be able to take part. There is no time pressure on your staff to get it right in a limited-time training seminar environment: they can review the materials as many times as needed.

It will be of benefit to new operators, green trainees, experienced personnel, supervisors and even for those ready to move up to Surveillance Manager level. It is to be the property of the casino, and will be administered on the casino’s schedule, at no further cost after initial purchase. All of the materials are there, available on demand. Supervisors, in correcting inexperienced personnel, will have specific materials on hand for training or review.

The program would include Power Point training presentations incorporating text, audio narration exactly as if presented in an in-person class, real-life video and photos as needed, written materials, exercises, drills and tests to determine whether the person who took the class actually understood and can apply the material. Each presentation or class has a position in a specific training sequence.

Each presentation would be a part of a unified, complete and comprehensive casino surveillance training program designed so that a casino Surveillance department, working on its own or together with Human Resources, can maintain the training level of its staff at a high standard despite personnel turnover, without need of outside contracted trainers brought in at great expense. It allows training on a schedule which meets the needs of the casino itself, rather than the quick in-and-out typical of all outside casino Surveillance training to date.

Typically, a trainer or consultant comes in, being paid a high daily rate, and due to budgets and schedules, only a small minority of the staff gets trained. Or a few people get sent to an outside seminar, at great expense per person, plus travel and lodging expenses for several days. Usuallly only the best of your people get sent, or supervisors, so that you are “training the trainers” only. Other staff may get the materials, but only second-hand, and always without the video and photographic materials that make such training valuable.

I know. I have done it for years. It is one of the parts of the business that always bothered me most. A year after I have been there, the people I trained have moved on or been promoted, and the casino that paid for the training is back where it started with green trainees and people with some experience but no formal training.

Worse, some of those outside trainers only put on a dog-and-pony show, wasting time with card tricks and shuffling tricks that require years of study and practice to accomplish,  AND ARE NOT PART OF THE REAL WORLD OF CASINO CHEATING AND THEFT..

Training sold through fear: This is one thing I have given my word never to do. Especially fear of those things that are highly unlikely to show up in a real-world casino.  Why train  people to detect  things that  are highly unlikely to happen in your own casino?  Why waste their time on motivational lectures?

A surveillance training program owned by the casino would no longer require that whole departments scramble their schedules in order to send only a few for a training program. The program could be maintained on an individual-by-individual level under supervision of the Director. Or it could be scheduled in such a way that new trainees would attend classes together; classes could be put together for first-year investigators who are beyond the trainee level, and separate classes could be held for those people ready and wanting to move up to Supervisor level.  It would be totally under the control of  the casino itself.

A program like this could be used to bring all new staff up to a level of competence when a casino is getting ready to expand, or to open a new casino.

Such a program could be administered by the Director of Surveillance, with information to Human Resources as to who has completed the various levels of training. Training received would be considered when a new position opens or when promotion is due.

Or it could be administered, in Indian-country casinos, by the gaming regulatory authorities. Some of the materials included are also necessary for gaming inspector positions, after all. A requirement from Gaming Regulation that observer/investigators receive specific training, that they pass competence and knowledge tests, is backed up by NIGC regulations requiring Surveillance personnel be trained.

In order to give this new concept a fine kick-off,
a good beginning, I will give the
first  five four three two one casinos who purchase a  training  program,
customized for their needs,
a full  35 percent  off the purchase price
(click here for an outline of the available training programs
and an explanation of the pricing structure)
Inquire with jimgoding@casinosurveillancenews.com

A custom Casino Surveillance Training Program can be designed for your casino
in approximately three weeks,
and put into action immediately.

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