Blog
Published:
January 2025
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) already driving major transformation in the casino industry, here are four specific tools to be aware of in 2025.
In a customer service capacity, the adoption of facial recognition (FR) has tended to focus on VIP care, for example, facilitating priority access to specific areas, services, or amenities. This is likely to change. FR will increasingly be used to deliver a more personalised experience for broader membership groups and regular customers by identifying and remembering their gaming, food, and drink preferences.
FR will also continue to enhance security by alerting staff to banned or suspicious patrons – for instance, known scammers, card counters, or even potential money launderers. We also predict an upturn in usage for responsible gaming enforcement. In 2024, high-profile fines were issued to casinos who failed to ‘spot and stop’ self-excluded customers from placing bets. In Australia, one property was fined $2 million. FR can help casinos avoid such scenarios by preventing access to self-excluded individuals.
AI-based video analytics already help busy surveillance teams proactively detect people, behaviours, and objects that pose a possible risk. Spotting suspicious hand movements and people loitering around cash cages are typical applications. Analytic alerts generated are often configured to prompt further responses by operators via workflows.
AI can also help speed up footage review, for instance, by searching for persons of interest relating to a reported incident and locating lost or stolen items. Our Forensic Search tool, for instance, leverages generative AI to help users search footage faster and more accurately with natural language queries – for example, ‘show me all footage of men in red sweaters.’
Technically, it is a category of applications rather than one specific tool, and automating time-consuming tasks is something AI is really good at. This will appeal to casino operators balancing significant labour shortages with increasing customer footfall.
For example, FR is used to streamline and strengthen casino access and service provision. Another is using AI to automate equipment checks (often mandated by regulators). Our ‘Scene Check’ tool, for instance, uses AI-based video analytics to ensure thousands of cameras are ‘scene compliant’ instantly, a process that would otherwise be extremely labour-intensive.
Integrating video analytics with gaming table stats to spot suspicious play is already happening. This is primarily ‘rules-based’ at present, with alerts generated where pre-set parameters are breached. While effective, this approach also depends on operators knowing what constitutes risk and setting ‘be on the lookout for’ prompts accordingly.
But what if the risk isn’t known? The next evolution of AI will address this by learning what’s normal and what isn’t – using this knowledge to analyse visual and non-visual data to flag patterns and trends that suggest risk. With a number of our customers already making ‘data analytics’ a key function of their surveillance and security team, this is definitely a development to watch.
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