RISK MITIGATION STRATEGIES AND SOLUTIONS Mar. 2010 vol. 20/no. 2

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The Server-Based Gaming ExperienceAn Investment in a Network Robust Enough for 24-Hour Video Surveillance is a Jackpot for Eastside Cannery Casino and Resort

Video Technology& Applications

Special Supplement

dundancy and retaining video for the re-quired number of days.

• Protecting guest information: Cus-tomer and gaming information cannot be accessible to hackers who might try to connect their own snooping equipment anywhere on the property.

• Automating incident detection and response: In the future, Eastside Casino wants to integrate its video surveillance systems with other physical security sys-tems, with the goal of accelerating inci-dent detection, assessment and response. An example is using the network to detect if a slot machine door is open and then automatically aim a camera to the appro-priate area so that an operator can deter-mine whether a response is required.

• Delivering a personalized guest experience and increasing revenue: The casino wanted to create the “wow” factor that attracts guests by using the property’s approximately 2,200 networked video displays to promote restaurants and shows and announce jackpots.

• Offering server-based games: East-side Cannery envisions its guests walking up to any video console in the gaming area and then choosing the game from an in-teractive menu. This requires a highly available, secure network with high band-width and the quality of service (QoS) to give priority to video traffic.

Eastside Cannery and DSW found the answer in the Cisco Connected Gaming Solution, which includes the network foun-dation, advanced security technologies and the Cisco Video Surveillance Solution.

The Foundation Network“In gaming environments, it’s critical

to have a solid network that supports 24x7 operations,” says Mike Day, chief infor-mation officer and vice president of IT for Cannery Casinos Resorts. “The Cisco Catalyst switches help to ensure that slot machines and video surveillance can continue operating even in the event of a switch or line failure.”

DSW built the network on a foundation of 22 Cisco Catalyst 6509 switches and 500 Cisco Catalyst 2900 switches. Unique Cisco technologies such as Virtual Switching System (VSS) technology and active-active switching provide the fault tolerance need-ed to meet gaming industry requirements. A module for Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches, VSS connects two chassis to make them seem like one system. “This gives slot ma-chines and video surveillance cameras

divergent physical paths, so that loss of one chassis reduces bandwidth but does not interrupt connectivity,” Peterson says. “The result is virtually 100-percent uptime on the circuit.”

These technologies were essential be-cause they prevent any packet loss. And loss of even one or two packets between gaming servers and slot systems — which is common with Spanning Tree Protocol — could cause an outage. “If one switch in a pair should ever go down, the other one will take over automatically, without any change to the guest experience,” Day says.

Flexible, Manageable Video Surveillance

The Cisco Video Surveillance Solution that operates over the network is also based on open standards. Operators use the supplier’s Video Surveillance Stream Manager to view, store and manage video from more than 550 mostly analog video surveillance cameras throughout the property. The casino uses archived video for after-the-fact investigations, viewing it over the network from any authorized console. “The property I came from had old video surveillance technology, based on VCRs,” says Mark Roberts, director of surveillance for Eastside Cannery Casino. “It took hours to edit video, and you had to be a master. Cisco Video Surveillance Stream Manager makes it much faster to review video from any camera.”

As an example, in most casinos when searching for video on casino and security in-cidents, operators have to review 8-10 video-tapes to look for evidence. With a networked solution, operators can quickly rewind or fast forward video over the network to more quickly find the relevant images. And if need-ed, operators can quickly create a DVD for law enforcement agencies, adding a water-mark to verify the recording was not altered.

Integration with Other Security Systems

The open standards-based approach gives Eastside Cannery the freedom to connect analog or digital video surveil-lance cameras from any vendor. “Open standards are also enabling Eastside Can-nery to integrate its video surveillance system with other advanced physical safe-ty and security technologies, for enhanced security,” says Rico Sacks, with Cisco Ad-vanced Services. The casino has already begun a pilot using the Cisco Video Sur-veillance System in conjunction with its

point-of-sale (POS) system, enabling food and beverage managers to monitor cash transactions, keep employees honest and identify training opportunities.

In the future, the casino plans to use video analytics software in its cameras to alert operators to suspicious events that they might otherwise miss because of in-formation overload. Other video analytics applications will enhance the guest ex-perience. For example, people-counting software can send an alert when queues at table games exceed a certain length, en-abling the casino to assign more dealers. This type of customer service intelligence can help keep players in the casino longer and in turn, increase profits.

Information SecurityThe security solution also helps East-

side Cannery comply with gaming indus-try regulations to prevent unauthorized people from connecting hubs and switch-es on the casino floor or anywhere else on the property, using a technology called 802.1x Supplicant.

For additional protection, Eastside Can-nery uses Cisco security technologies to di-vide a single physical switch into more than 60 separate virtual networks for gaming de-vices and other systems. Other technologies, such as the Cisco Firewall Services Module for the Catalyst 6500 switch, help to prevent attacks on the slot floor infrastructure, keep hackers from impersonating authorized users, and prevent eavesdropping on traffic between gaming devices and servers. In addition, Cisco Secure Access Control Server enforces the gaming industry’s requirement for users to reset their pass-words every 45 days.

Players who enter Eastside Cannery Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada step into an exciting video environment, with approximately 2,200 displays used for gaming, promotions and

advertising entertainment options. Behind the scenes, operators monitor more than 550 video surveillance cameras 24 hours a day, and hotel staff and guests make calls using an advanced VoIP system.

In a development that would have been unthinkable a few short years ago, all of these systems connect to a common, highly stable IP network. The technology making it possible is the Cisco Connected Gaming Solution, which includes the Cisco Video Surveillance Stream Manager platform.

An Edge to Attract CustomersCannery Casino Resorts (CCR) operates

three casinos in the Las Vegas area and one in Pennsylvania. The Eastside Cannery Re-sort and Casino, which opened in August 2008, is leading the industry’s transforma-tion to server-based gaming. Targeted at lo-cal residents as opposed to tourists, the ca-sino has 65,000 square feet of gaming space with approximately 2,000 slot machines, 21 table games, a 450-seat bingo hall, poker room, and a race and sports book.

When planning the new property, the CCR IT department knew it needed an un-derlying network infrastructure that sup-ported Nevada gaming industry require-ments for security, operated reliably at all

times and minimized management require-ments. For help with planning and imple-mentation, the IT department engaged Data Systems Worldwide (DSW) and Cisco Advanced Services. “A casino processing millions in daily wagering is well advised to invest in a reliable network infrastruc-ture,” says Ryan Peterson, Chief Technol-ogy Officer, Data Systems Worldwide.

The first step was identifying require-ments for the property’s network founda-tion:

• Meeting Nevada gaming industry re-quirements for video surveillance: These include monitoring gaming tables with 24-hour surveillance, providing adequate resolution and frame rate, ensuring re-

34 SECURITY TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE • March 2010

An investment in a network robust enough for 24-hour video surveillance is paying a jackpot well beyond physical security for Eastside Cannery Casino and Resort

By Steve Collen

The Server-Based Gaming Experience

Cover FocusMark Roberts, Director of Surveillance, Eastside Cannery Casino; Ryan Peterson, vice presi-dent of Solutions, Data Systems Worldwide; and Mike Day, CIO, Cannery Casino Resorts, helped oversee the resort’s upgrade.

35SECURITY TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE • March 2010

dundancy and retaining video for the re-quired number of days.

• Protecting guest information: Cus-tomer and gaming information cannot be accessible to hackers who might try to connect their own snooping equipment anywhere on the property.

• Automating incident detection and response: In the future, Eastside Casino wants to integrate its video surveillance systems with other physical security sys-tems, with the goal of accelerating inci-dent detection, assessment and response. An example is using the network to detect if a slot machine door is open and then automatically aim a camera to the appro-priate area so that an operator can deter-mine whether a response is required.

• Delivering a personalized guest experience and increasing revenue: The casino wanted to create the “wow” factor that attracts guests by using the property’s approximately 2,200 networked video displays to promote restaurants and shows and announce jackpots.

• Offering server-based games: East-side Cannery envisions its guests walking up to any video console in the gaming area and then choosing the game from an in-teractive menu. This requires a highly available, secure network with high band-width and the quality of service (QoS) to give priority to video traffic.

Eastside Cannery and DSW found the answer in the Cisco Connected Gaming Solution, which includes the network foun-dation, advanced security technologies and the Cisco Video Surveillance Solution.

The Foundation Network“In gaming environments, it’s critical

to have a solid network that supports 24x7 operations,” says Mike Day, chief infor-mation officer and vice president of IT for Cannery Casinos Resorts. “The Cisco Catalyst switches help to ensure that slot machines and video surveillance can continue operating even in the event of a switch or line failure.”

DSW built the network on a foundation of 22 Cisco Catalyst 6509 switches and 500 Cisco Catalyst 2900 switches. Unique Cisco technologies such as Virtual Switching System (VSS) technology and active-active switching provide the fault tolerance need-ed to meet gaming industry requirements. A module for Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches, VSS connects two chassis to make them seem like one system. “This gives slot ma-chines and video surveillance cameras

divergent physical paths, so that loss of one chassis reduces bandwidth but does not interrupt connectivity,” Peterson says. “The result is virtually 100-percent uptime on the circuit.”

These technologies were essential be-cause they prevent any packet loss. And loss of even one or two packets between gaming servers and slot systems — which is common with Spanning Tree Protocol — could cause an outage. “If one switch in a pair should ever go down, the other one will take over automatically, without any change to the guest experience,” Day says.

Flexible, Manageable Video Surveillance

The Cisco Video Surveillance Solution that operates over the network is also based on open standards. Operators use the supplier’s Video Surveillance Stream Manager to view, store and manage video from more than 550 mostly analog video surveillance cameras throughout the property. The casino uses archived video for after-the-fact investigations, viewing it over the network from any authorized console. “The property I came from had old video surveillance technology, based on VCRs,” says Mark Roberts, director of surveillance for Eastside Cannery Casino. “It took hours to edit video, and you had to be a master. Cisco Video Surveillance Stream Manager makes it much faster to review video from any camera.”

As an example, in most casinos when searching for video on casino and security in-cidents, operators have to review 8-10 video-tapes to look for evidence. With a networked solution, operators can quickly rewind or fast forward video over the network to more quickly find the relevant images. And if need-ed, operators can quickly create a DVD for law enforcement agencies, adding a water-mark to verify the recording was not altered.

Integration with Other Security Systems

The open standards-based approach gives Eastside Cannery the freedom to connect analog or digital video surveil-lance cameras from any vendor. “Open standards are also enabling Eastside Can-nery to integrate its video surveillance system with other advanced physical safe-ty and security technologies, for enhanced security,” says Rico Sacks, with Cisco Ad-vanced Services. The casino has already begun a pilot using the Cisco Video Sur-veillance System in conjunction with its

point-of-sale (POS) system, enabling food and beverage managers to monitor cash transactions, keep employees honest and identify training opportunities.

In the future, the casino plans to use video analytics software in its cameras to alert operators to suspicious events that they might otherwise miss because of in-formation overload. Other video analytics applications will enhance the guest ex-perience. For example, people-counting software can send an alert when queues at table games exceed a certain length, en-abling the casino to assign more dealers. This type of customer service intelligence can help keep players in the casino longer and in turn, increase profits.

Information SecurityThe security solution also helps East-

side Cannery comply with gaming indus-try regulations to prevent unauthorized people from connecting hubs and switch-es on the casino floor or anywhere else on the property, using a technology called 802.1x Supplicant.

For additional protection, Eastside Can-nery uses Cisco security technologies to di-vide a single physical switch into more than 60 separate virtual networks for gaming de-vices and other systems. Other technologies, such as the Cisco Firewall Services Module for the Catalyst 6500 switch, help to prevent attacks on the slot floor infrastructure, keep hackers from impersonating authorized users, and prevent eavesdropping on traffic between gaming devices and servers. In addition, Cisco Secure Access Control Server enforces the gaming industry’s requirement for users to reset their pass-words every 45 days.

Players who enter Eastside Cannery Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada step into an exciting video environment, with approximately 2,200 displays used for gaming, promotions and

advertising entertainment options. Behind the scenes, operators monitor more than 550 video surveillance cameras 24 hours a day, and hotel staff and guests make calls using an advanced VoIP system.

In a development that would have been unthinkable a few short years ago, all of these systems connect to a common, highly stable IP network. The technology making it possible is the Cisco Connected Gaming Solution, which includes the Cisco Video Surveillance Stream Manager platform.

An Edge to Attract CustomersCannery Casino Resorts (CCR) operates

three casinos in the Las Vegas area and one in Pennsylvania. The Eastside Cannery Re-sort and Casino, which opened in August 2008, is leading the industry’s transforma-tion to server-based gaming. Targeted at lo-cal residents as opposed to tourists, the ca-sino has 65,000 square feet of gaming space with approximately 2,000 slot machines, 21 table games, a 450-seat bingo hall, poker room, and a race and sports book.

When planning the new property, the CCR IT department knew it needed an un-derlying network infrastructure that sup-ported Nevada gaming industry require-ments for security, operated reliably at all

times and minimized management require-ments. For help with planning and imple-mentation, the IT department engaged Data Systems Worldwide (DSW) and Cisco Advanced Services. “A casino processing millions in daily wagering is well advised to invest in a reliable network infrastruc-ture,” says Ryan Peterson, Chief Technol-ogy Officer, Data Systems Worldwide.

The first step was identifying require-ments for the property’s network founda-tion:

• Meeting Nevada gaming industry re-quirements for video surveillance: These include monitoring gaming tables with 24-hour surveillance, providing adequate resolution and frame rate, ensuring re-

34 SECURITY TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE • March 2010

An investment in a network robust enough for 24-hour video surveillance is paying a jackpot well beyond physical security for Eastside Cannery Casino and Resort

By Steve Collen

The Server-Based Gaming Experience

Cover FocusMark Roberts, Director of Surveillance, Eastside Cannery Casino; Ryan Peterson, vice presi-dent of Solutions, Data Systems Worldwide; and Mike Day, CIO, Cannery Casino Resorts, helped oversee the resort’s upgrade.

35SECURITY TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE • March 2010

Transforming the Player ExperienceThe return on investment from the ca-

sino’s IP network extends beyond security. With the gaming industry’s first fully net-worked gaming floor, Eastside Cannery is differentiating itself by creating a more enjoyable player experience:

• Server-based gaming: “Our objective in building an IP-based gaming floor is to offer our customers more — more interac-tion, games, prizes, and giveaways than they get elsewhere,” says Daryl Lytle, corporate network administrator, Cannery Casinos Resorts. For example, Cannery’s new Splash Down / Count Down and Ricochet Rewards program, used with Aristocrat games, en-ables players to engage in group collabora-tion for bonus pools, and also enables play-ers to collaborate to share bonus games and points. In the future, the casino will be able to push a brand-new game to slot machines without having to change the entire bank of games, which will save thousands of hours, according to Lytle.

• New marketing venue at no extra cost: The marketing department uses idle gaming monitors to announce when someone has

won the jackpot, increasing excitement on the floor. And when a restaurant has open tables, Eastside Cannery can instantly ad-vertise the discount on any video monitor in the property. “Today’s slot machine is more than a game,” Peterson says. “It’s a market-ing venue. We have a captive audience in customers who are playing a game, and can market to them on the same screen.”

• Personalized customer experience: Tying together the gaming floor, player tracking system, and hotels has created a central repository of information that is helping Eastside Cannery create a custom-ized player experience, including offering points redeemable for meals. “When a past guest walks through our doors, we like to know what games they play, their room preferences and where they enjoy dining,” Day says. “This helps us offer amenities and bonuses to make their stay more pleasant.”

The benefits extend to hotel guests, as well. Guests staying in suites can use their touch screen color IP phones for flight check in and more. Maids touch buttons on the phones when the room is ready for the next guest, enabling faster turnover.

Leading the Way to the Future of Gaming

What might the future hold? Perhaps you will be able to visit a restaurant and order on screen, pay by placing your credit card on the table, and even indicate which ingredients to exclude because of aller-gies. Eliminating the middleman between customer and chef simplifies operations. Maybe you’ll make a restaurant reserva-tion from the gaming machine so that you can play longer instead of waiting in line. Eastside Cannery might also encourage you to view your in-room energy and water usage in real-time from an IP phone, and gain points by reducing consumption.

“With its open standards-based ap-proach, the Cisco network is the platform for video surveillance, server-based gam-ing, applications that enhance the guest experience, and other applications we haven’t even thought of,” Day says. “We’re prepared for the future.” ❚

Steve Collen is Director of Business Development for Cisco’s Physical Security Business Unit.

36 SECURITY TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE • March 2010

Cover Focus

Casino CopenhagenCasino Copenhagen has

deployed a surveillance solu-tion based on the XProtect Corporate security platform from Milestone Systems. “Like all other casinos, we must conform to strict laws and regulations for security and internal procedures,” says the casino’s surveillance manager, Jesper Frederiksen.

Using the security platform, operators are able to control hun-dreds of surveillance cameras at the same time, viewing live or ar-chived images from different servers simultaneously. In addition, the video material is easily exported when the police want evidence. Several hundred cameras are connected to the servers, each with a storage capacity of 10 TB. This is critical for the video ar-chives, since recordings from the gambling tables must be saved for 31 days according to the law, while images from the cash transactions must be kept for 62 days. The video records with sound and this gives a special advantage: should a customer ask to put his money on the color red and there is a dispute, the operators can scroll back to determine precisely what did occur, which quickly resolves any disagreements. The images are also used to ensure that all internal procedures are upheld.

“We can find precise sequences from many different angles, scroll back and forth quickly, synchronize time, and zoom in for

close-ups,” Frederiksen says. “The issues often have to do with who has put a chip on the table at a cer-tain time and for a particular amount. We can browse the images from several cameras at the same time and see the details of a person’s hand in action.”

Chinook Winds Casino ResortChinook Winds Casino Resort, Oregon is an exam-

ple of how a gaming surveillance operation can be transformed following the installation of a digital IP Video solution. The resort recently deployed an end-to-end, integrated, 500-camera sys-tem from IndigoVision to replace aging analog/VCR equipment. The system was installed by IndigoVision’s Approved Partner, Southwest Surveillance Systems.

The resort consists of an always-open casino, 227-room beach front hotel, fitness center, 18-hole golf course and six restaurants. The surveillance solution offers high-quality, full frame-rate video without dropping a frame, under any conditions. This is fundamental

to ensure that any fraudulent activity is detected and cus-tomer disputes are quickly resolved – an area in which the Casino has seen signifi-cant improvement.

Market Focus: Gaming/Casino Resort SecurityA roundup of recent security applications and installations

Operators use Milestone’s XProtect Platform for security management at Casino Copenhagen.

(continued on page 40)