Surveilllance Highs and Lows

A Las Vegas blogger happened to spot an advertisement for an on-call surveillance guy at the Bellagio.

Look at the obsolete equipment and low wages involved at a top casino. And then wonder why the casino executives are not always the swiftest types. A high school graduate making ten bucks an hour and manually changing out cassettes all day long on legacy black and white cameras.... and he probably can't zoom in a good looking girl if he wanted to.


Blog.

Quote: FleaStiff

Look at the obsolete equipment and low wages involved at a top casino. And then wonder why the casino executives are not always the swiftest types.

You would think that data storage can be purchased by the terbyte today. It must be incredible to wind and re-wind tape to look for things. Perhaps there is a legal reason to use tape.

From the blog you posted of the bachelorette posse in the matching purple tank tops. It reminds me of children's tour groups where they dress up the kids in matching t-shirts so they can be picked out easily if they run astray.

Meh. I know of casinos that say the exact thing, yet they're all digitized. I don't know if it's a "just in case" thing, or, more accurately, no one's bothered to update the application. We have tape changing procedural manuals and ain't never had a VCR in the place.

HS diploma. So? It's not rocket science, nor is it book learnin', nor are there courses that'd help you out. Not a single college course taken by any of our employees are utilized. About the only past skills used are those from former military/police (attention to detail), and MMORPG gamers (typing skills and computer maneuverability).

Basic counting knowledge. How about none? Coming in, everything I knew about casinos came from Casino. Many are similar. That's what training is for. It's a weird gig, you either get it or you don't.

Hourly rate? Worse I know of is ~$12, best is ~$25.

I have to assume it is just a lazy person in HR not updateing the post. I assume just the cost of tapes alone is more than what it costs to update a system to all digital. ROI can't be more than a year or 2.

Face can certainly correct me if I'm wrong as I have no experience in casino operations, but I would speculate that even with the H.S. or GED requirement, someone with such is not going to get hired into this as his first job. Generally speaking, for example, I would only hire a first-time front desk employee if they had some kind of college experience, but I'm not going to make that a job requirement. If someone has H.S. or GED, but desk experience, that's who I want and I would not put college as a requirement because I do not want to dissuade someone with desk experience, but no college, from applying. At the same time, working the desk at my hotel is not something that you would get hired into as your first job, either.

Lazy perhaps but over worked is also likely.

Quote: soulhunt79

I have to assume it is just a lazy person in HR not updateing the post. I assume just the cost of tapes alone is more than what it costs to update a system to all digital. ROI can't be more than a year or 2.

Wait, you don't mean to tell me that a major casino has a poor understanding of ROI based on immediately-increased expenses (i.e., they aren't looking at the big picture)?

A few years ago tapes were cheap enough (under $1.00) each that the conversion cost did not always make enough of a dent for some casinos to make the change. A digital upgrade can easily cost $30,000+ for just a handfull of DVRs (assuming they are 16 channel ones). Prices are going down for the DVRs (and NVRs) so most places are finally making the change, especially since it is hard to find tapes for less than $2 each. There are very few places that still manufacture tapes in bulk, so casinos are stuck purchasing them individually (like you might purchase in a regular store).

The problem is that a lot of casino management still have the mentality that surveillance is a "non-revenue" generating department, so spending any money on that area is distasteful to them, especially when that money could be spent on some other upgrade.

And yes, doing reviews on VHS tapes is God awful :(

Quote: brianparkes

The problem is that a lot of casino management still have the mentality that surveillance is a "non-revenue" generating department, so spending any money on that area is distasteful to them, especially when that money could be spent on some other upgrade.

Let me quote "The 'losing less' concept is the most difficult concept to grasp empirically." from the Blackjack thread.

I agree completely.

One problem in viewing investment in surveillance technology as being profitable may be that there is both a time lag and a skills lag induced by the "burger flipper" status of the camera staring surveillance department.