Assisting Management
Assisting Casino Management
By Jim Goding
Pit, slots, and cage supervisors and other casino management personnel will regularly request that special attention be given to activity at a particular table or area. These requests should be immediately evaluated by the on-duty Surveillance Supervisor and a decision made on how best to handle the request. Evaluations of player action are routinely done and reported to a Pit Manager or above. A Pit Manager or above (second or third level of supervisor, not basic floor supervisors) can request that a dealer or a player or other person be watched for suspicious activity. All requests should be honored whenever possible, when it will not interfere with higher-priority activity, such as handling a crime in progress. Record all potential criminal activity from as many viewpoints (cameras) as possible. The minimum on this is called "Tri-shot Coverage," and is covered in another article. The recording should be treated as evidence and all necessary reports completed, whether low-level Daily Logs for negative suspicious activity to full reports for advantage players, suspicious activity on the parts of player or dealer or other staff member, or observed errors requiring correction. All telephone conversations shall be conducted in a professional and courteous manner. Discourtesy by Surveillance staff will not be tolerated. Likewise, Surveillance personnel will not be expected to tolerate rudeness from other departments. As gracefully as possible, get out of the conversation. Report discourtesy to your Supervisor. Note: Floor Supervisors and other Casino departments do not order into Surveillance. When called by a floorperson regarding a particular game or activity, such as to determine whether someone is counting cards, or a low-level supervisor having suspicion of a player or one of their juniors, or a possible crime in progress, etc., courteously remind them that this must also be reported to their own supervisors. When the evaluation of play is finished, report to a Pit Supervisor regardless of results, and courteously mention that the lower-level floor supervisor called Surveillance and that requests for player evaluations should come from a Pit Manager. Don’t confuse this with the required notifications to Surveillance of high action or suspicious activity. Simply remind them gently that this must be reported to their own supervisors as well. However, floormen can request any help needed to correct a dealer error (or a claim of dealer error) already made. When calling Surveillance regarding a game, floormen are also required by their own procedures to report the matter to their supervisors. You will report this back immediately to the floor supervisor who called, as a matter of customer service and of keeping the games going. Of course, your Daily Log or Incident Report is also going to be seen, in the longer term, by top managers for the area. Be careful to include the name of the person who requested help, the name of the person who made any error involved, or the name of the player who is claiming nonexistent errors. If there is to be difficulty in handling that could go above the level of a floor supervisor, report to the level as needed in their chain of command. This goes further: when investigating "dealer errors," one occasionally comes across evidence of crooked players, crooked dealers, collusion, or even just plain habitual procedural violations on the part of dealers and lower level supervisors. These must be reported, even to correct a "minor problem" on the floor, to higher managers. This topic is covered much more fully in "Handling Procedure Violations" and other articles in the Reports section.