At the heart of the casino’s marketing machine is its players” club, which tracks gamblers” play with swipe cards when they stack up points to redeem meals, hotel stays, merchandise and cash.
This vast database of cashable casino revenues is so important that if you have an Ocean’s 14 movie, the next best casino heist might target the computer that manages it.
And it won’t be fiction. According to casino regulators and security experts, casino insiders are raiding gamblers’ loyalty points.
Randy Sayre, a member of the game’s control board, said casino employees with access to the player’s club database transferred points from customers’ accounts to counterfeit accounts, which allowed them to redeem points to ensure accomplices received guaranteed rewards. The employees also created accounts and accumulated counterfeit points.
When a customer discovers that his or her account has been taken out, the theft is sometimes revealed. Without the customer’s boundaries, some thefts might not have been found.
Sayer declined to provide further explanation for the casino’s identity or suspects, and did not provide arrest information for the unidentified suspects.
“Control board agents have arrested several player club thieves in a scam that has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at casinos in recent years,” Sayre said.
The theft has led to new coursework focusing on player club security as part of UNLV’s casino surveillance and security program, with the University of Nevada, Reno and the Control Board set to hold workshops to crack down with casino operators in the coming weeks.
Stealing players’ club points is the latest development in casino theft, which involves outdated efforts such as stealing chips, manipulating cards or using metal devices to manipulate slot machines.
More sophisticated scenarios involve slot technicians roaming the floor with a regular player club card, which is used to test slot machines. In some cases, slot technicians load points that can be transferred to a “player” who later places the card on it.
Experts say that many Nevada casinos are unaware of these problems or are not doing enough to prevent them.
“They know this, but no one wants to acknowledge that it happens on their property,” says Gary Powell, a casino security consultant and former Game Control Board agent.
The rise in player club theft is not surprising given that most casino crimes involve slot machines as well as employees, Powell said.
Casino employees not only have access to sensitive information, but can also attempt to cover their tracks, he said. 메이저 토토사이트
In May, for example, a player club supervisor was indicted by federal prosecutors at a Washington state casino on charges of extracting about $20,000 worth of points earned by casino players and issuing cash vouchers repaid by friends.
Derk J. Boss, a loss protection consultant and lecturer at UNLV and UNR, said casino security efforts were still focused on more traditional methods of cheating and had not caught up with the large growth of casino player clubs.
