Training Programs
by Jim Goding
How do we bring new staff, not yet even acquainted with the reality of the gaming world, up to the level of competence required for Surveillance and Security operations, where misunderstandings and mistakes could put the casino at risk?
This is critical for Surveillance: Wrong decisions, too much or too little reporting, or incompetent handling of reviews, evidence, and games could cost the casino a lot of money in a very short period of time.
It is just as critical for supervisors out on the gaming floor, whether they work in Table Games, Slots, Security or the Cage. It reaches down to the lowest level, whether that is the break-in Surveillance operator who is still learning how to handle cameras, or the dealer new to a game, his supervisor, or the Security officer carrying chips from the Cage to the games or greeting people as they enter the casino.
We have to start, in every instance, with basics. In many jurisdictions this is required by law: a new employee must become acquainted with the most basic policies of the casino and the most basic of gaming regulations, translated into English: "Thou shalt not allow minors to gamble. Thou shalt not serve alcohol to people who are already drunk. " Etc. This is generally considered a "Staff Orientation for New Hires," and is usually conducted by Human Resources.
We are going to go even deeper than that: What are the most basic things that a new employee has to know, no matter where he works?
First is the geography of the casino: Where is his place of work, as compared to other parts of the casino? Where are the permitted bathrooms, break rooms, where can he go and where can he not? How does a person get from one place in the casino to another?
This becomes critical for Surveillance and Security: Certain areas are not permitted access for public, or for staff other than the ones who work there. How does a new person recognize the correct staff? How does he know when someone is there who doesn't belong?
We also need to be able to predict where a person will be going next, both in public areas and in back-of-the-house, employee-only territory. How else can you do a close watch on an employee under suspicion, or apprehend a thief before he makes it out the door? How can you keep a person under covert camera surveillance if you don't know where he is or where he is most likely to go, and the camera which covers that area and what direction you need to swing that camera?
How can you watch a money escort of hundreds of thousands of dollars if you don't know the location of the next point in the route, what cameras cover it and the points in between?
You really don't want your new surveillance operator trainee getting lost on the way back from the lunchroom, either. Though we seldom walk the halls, keeping ourselves generally isolated from the rest of the staff, we still need to know the geography of the casino, both its public areas and "back of the house." In Surveillance, we need to know it both in place and via multiple camera viewpoints.
For Surveillance, the next step is learning the cameras to cover various areas of the casino, with emphasis on those which are needed for his first duties: watching the count room, cage, and money escorts through the house. They need to learn the cameras, need to learn what type of coverage is required for watching the various activities, how to move the cameras. They need to understand the surveillance system, how to review coverage, how to save coverage and what type of evidence is required. This is not the same for every casino, depending upon regulatory environment, house policy and the type of surveillance system in use. Some base rules do apply.
This comes long before you start training the new investigators on games. They need to have a minimum level of competence with the camera system and reporting before they even get close to watching games for procedural errors, theft or cheating.
You can even weed out unsuitable operators by their ability (or lack of it) with regard to remembering casino geography and the cameras to go with it, as well as competence with handling cameras, saving coverage and other handling of the system, being able to follow people through the casino gaming areas and back halls, and ability to keep attention on the activities they are observing.
How do you communicate with various areas? How do you operate the phones, access controls, and what are the correct protocols for radio communication? What can you say over the radio, and what is reserved for land-line communication? What are forbidden topics and words over the radio? How do you cover when one of these topics must be discussed? What are the verbal shorthand codes for communication with Security? What are the phone numbers for various areas and personnel?
Many areas, such as Cage, Security, Slots and often Surveillance, use a buddy system, putting a relatively experienced person with the "newby" at least until he finds a "place to stand." This allows the supervisors to cover their areas, and it also gives us a chance to evaluate both the new guy and the one he is buddying with. I have used people still in training (at a higher level) for this when possible, and it gives me a chance to see holes in the senior person's training and experience. Once you know where the holes are it is relatively easy to remedy them.
While they are learning the cameras, drilling them in by following specific activities, you start training them in Surveillance Room policy and procedures:
- What are we required to follow and observe by regulation?
- What do we follow and observe according to policy?
- What are our reporting lines, both verbal for on-the-spot corrections and in writing for information filing and executive information?
- How is our activity recorded?
- Who needs to be notified when things happen that are out of the ordinary?
- What are the priorities?
- When are you justified in dropping one thing for a higher priority, and what documentation is required?
- What is the Surveillance Room Procedure?
- What are the contingency plans for various situations?
- What are the Surveillance operators supposed to watch, watch for, record, and report?
Then you start training them in the procedures of the areas they are watching. What EXACTLY are those people supposed to be doing when they are counting the money, refilling the kiosks, bringing chips to the tables, paying jackpots, doing cash transactions? What are the deviations from established procedures that could mask a theft? What is the Surveillance procedure for reporting errors or violations? Who has to be notified, and who does the notifications? What items require further inquiry or investigation before notification, and who has to be notified at the level of suspicion, while investigation proceeds? Who should NOT be advised? When do you contact the immediate supervisor in charge, and when do you contact the top available manager of the activity concerned? Should this be done by the Surveillance investigator, or by the supervisor?
What is the chain of command of Security? Of Surveillance? Cage? Count rooms? At what levels of non-ordinary activity do we contact what level in each chain of command? When do we have to contact regulatory authorities? Police? Whose job is it to contact law enforcement or regulatory authorities, under different circumstances?
These things vary, by jurisdiction, by corporation, by specific property, and even according to the individuals involved at specific properties or different times of the day. They are all part of the second level of training of Surveillance, Security and supervisory personnel in every department.
Now, and only now, do you get into the games. Games include slots, table games, poker.
Most casinos make the majority of their income through slots, and these are where the most money gets paid out, as well. Modern slot cheating and theft is generally accomplished through collusion with employees, or simply by the employees themselves. How is this accomplished? What are the procedures in place to prevent it? What are the general procedures of the department for control of computer access, by which modern cheating is accomplished? How is the money controlled? Who gets notified of major jackpots, and when do we examine in detail?
Table games are the next level. The casino places its bankroll at risk on table games, with a mathematical edge on every single game. Without the edge, the game does not pay the casino.
In Surveillance, first teach how the games are played and the rules for each game, and then teach how the games can be cheated. If you don't understand the game, you cannot watch it at the speed with which games are conducted in a casino environment.
Teach the procedures of the games, with the priority being the procedures that allow Surveillance to watch and record evidence, then the procedures which prevent cheating and theft.
These are dealt with on two different levels. For instance, when a dealer does not spread the cards to make them readable to Surveillance fixed cameras, or cuts chips in some different way, Surveillance can produce no evidence of many forms of cheats, cannot correct errors, and often cannot even correct legitimate mistakes. This type of error also makes it impossible for floor supervisors, with four to six games each, to competently observe their games or make on-the-spot corrections.
When procedural violations of this type occur commonly, one has to suspect both the dealer and the supervisor of not just incompetence, but various forms of crooked activity. This suspicion becomes even more active when corrections through the chain of command do not occur--or especially when they are resisted--by the supervisory staff or the dealers.
Of course, Surveillance could be at fault in this, if they are troubling the top level of the chain of command with very minor problems. This is why supervisors and Surveillance are trained in the purpose of every procedure in every area they watch.
Procedural violations which make it impossible to observe the games for errors and cheating have to take top priority, and must be dealt with on the currently available chain of command.
Game protection procedures, while they overlap these, can often be dealt with at lower levels. But if corrections do not occur, then once again we have to deal with the full chain of command. Correction might have to be done from the top level on supervisors, as well as front line. Just as an example, a blackjack dealer who exposes the dealer hole card as it comes out of the shoe is creating a vulnerability for major losses on that game. An immediate, in-place correction is necessary, with info to the top level manager on the shift.
However, after a correction has been made, if it occurs repeatedly with the same dealers under the same supervisor, one has to think about why this correction never gets done. There has to be info to the top level games management, and a watch put on the general area under that supervisor, and possibly some of the dealers, to ensure that actual dealer/agent cheating is not taking place with the supposed supervisor either inattentive or purposely ignoring it (and at the extreme, taking a cut of the proceeds).
Once you start training people in procedures and the chain of command in their own areas and the areas they supervise, you also have to start training them in the regulations and laws involved, so that they will know in fact what are violations of law and what are procedural violations.
This is sadly lacking, often, in supervisory personnel outside Surveillance. I once had to prevent an arrest for a "gaming crime" that was in fact nothing more than advantage play, with the opportunity being created by an incompetent dealer. On another property, the person was arrested for the same activity, resulting in a very expensive lawsuit.
So procedures and regulations, laws and policies in all the various areas are the third level of training.
However, we need to look at exactly how to accomplish this training.
The Buddy System
More practical for most of us, the most basic training can be carried out on a buddy system, with help of the on-duty supervisor. This works well for Surveillance and Security, and also in some respects in other areas. The "buddy," or Training Officer--who can be anyone from another trainee who has been there for a few weeks to a senior staffer--takes the new guy in hand and shows him the ropes.
In Surveillance, they learn the camera system, what has to be watched, what can be dropped and when, where the bathroom and break room and lunchroom are, and how to find one's way around the casino both on the floor and by camera. Basics on reports, how they are written, what information has to be included, who to call for what observations, phone numbers--all are things often best learned in this manner. It doesn't require a supervisor or a training manager to put the majority of attention on the new guy on Friday or Saturday night, and the new guy learns. If it gets too hot, he just shuts up and watches and learns. Otherwise he does the routine work under the eye of a more experienced person, who is expected to instruct and correct.
This also works well for Cage personnel, count room people, and especially Security officers. The New Guy and his buddy are in effect, for a short period of time, one person. They go everywhere together, take breaks together, fill the same position, and the New Guy learns the ropes.
At the end of the training period, the New Guy walks through it with a supervisor or gets tested, any holes in the expected knowledge get patched and filled, and he moves on to the next level. This is also an excellent time to make needed corrections on the more senior buddy, because his lack of knowledge (camouflaged holes) shows up in what has not been passed on. Training checklists are very effective for this.
The buddy system might not work well in some kinds of environments. For example, in a Surveillance room with regulatory requirements of staffing levels plus a severely limited budget or number of workstations, you might not be able to send two people on break together, or have two people doing one job, even for training purposes.
For other areas, it can work very well, and contributes even more to handling holes in the TO's knowledge. Table games dealers fresh out of training should work with a buddy for at least a couple of shifts. Even an experienced dealer who is new to the property should have at least one shift with a person who knows the particular procedures of the casino, so that he can learn any differences in procedures from wherever he dealt before. This helps the new dealer, as another dealer right there at his shoulder is less likely to create nervous errors than having a "suit" hanging on the game. And once again, a buddy system points up errors being made by the training officer.
Many people may not like to act as training officer. Some feel that it is a waste of their time, not realizing that an untrained person in their area will later be nothing better than a distraction. Others may not feel they have the personal skills necessary for the job, or feel this is unnecessary.
One solution is to add an incentive for the shifts spent as training officer, perhaps an hourly bonus. Another is to adopt a training guide, as a part of the buddy system:
1. Tell them once.
2. Show them once.
3. Make them do it, and correct any errors until competent.
4. Make them do it on their own.
5. Make them train another.
Consistent Training Programs
The entire point is that one needs to set up a consistent training program, according to the needs and resources of the department, the regulatory environment of the casino, what it offers to the public, and its potential vulnerabilities. The full extent of the training program will depend on the casino.
There are many possibilities. From the experiences of another consultant and observer, in some large casinos in the Far East, Surveillance personnel start by attending from several days to several weeks of full-time training before being placed behind cameras and expected to fulfill any duties. This may not be workable in many environments, especially when Surveillance personnel budgets are restricted.
In another area, certain front-line personnel are required by law to have a minimum number of hours in formal classroom instruction and practice of their functions before they are allowed on the public line. Yet other areas, just as important, are not regulated in this way at all. They are expected to do all of their training in place, on, the job, while actually making decisions and performing actions that could place the casino at risk if performed incorrectly.
These are questions that need to be addressed, but not in this article. What we want here is a basic lineup, one which can be modified according to needs. Let's take a look, and see what we come up with. I am inviting comments and suggestions both as to content and sequence, both from those more experienced than I and from people looking at it from a relative newcomer's viewpoint.
The following basic outline (See Basic Surveillance Training) could easily be converted into a training checklist, after adjustments have been made for the individual casino environment.
This article will remain available until March 2012, after which it will be excerpted on the website and only available as a part of the Manual.
Copyright © 2011 by Jim Goding. All Rights reserved. Resale or distribution in part or in whole, or as the work of another, is a violation of copyright law and will be prosecuted.
