Fixing It

By Jim Goding

Many times over the past years I have been asked a very difficult question by surveillance investigators and by executives in the Pits and Slots and other areas under Surveillance observation: How do we go about getting these problems fixed? The question requires two answers: one for the Surveillance personnel, and one for the other areas. I will attempt to address the situation from both points of view. Surveillance personnel tend toward a somewhat bloodthirsty attitude, as a result of being in an isolated environment, not having to personally confront the problems and situations that a pit boss, slots manager or cage manager faces. One of the most common questions I get is “why don’t they just fire these people?” when a report has been turned in, with video backup, of serious procedural violations, internal control violations, or even evidence of collusion and theft. Surveillance personnel expect to come in a couple days later and see a hole where the person has been. However, they can’t see that anything has been done to handle the situation. Often it looks as if the report has simply been ignored: The person is still there, in place, and quite often is still pursuing the same activities that occasioned the report in the first place. Well, it’s not that easy. . . . .

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When direct supervisors, working from an understanding of the procedures, begin to take on the responsibility of training, correction and discipline of their juniors, using Surveillance reports as simply observed fact rather than as orders from above (which they are not), then the problem has begun to be handled.

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