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HD surveillance for Sun International Panama

With a number of casinos in South Africa, Africa and South America, Sun International is a high-profile organisation. Casinos are highly regulated and very susceptible to a number of risks including fraud, cheating, theft, robberies and liability claims. For this reason, casinos require state-of-the-art surveillance systems to deal with these matters both proactively and reactively.

Ocean Sun Casino is a brand new Sun International casino located in Panama City, Panama. After conducting thorough research, Sun International selected Avigilon as the most suitable gaming surveillance solution for this project. FutureVid Solutions was chosen as the system integrator, based on extensive gaming surveillance experience, an excellent understanding of Sun International’s high standards and the ability to integrate gaming systems such as the Bally Online Slots System, with Avigilon.

Although the casino surveillance department actively manages and uses the gaming surveillance system as a tool, all departments in the casino benefit from an HD surveillance system. Besides the obvious security applications, gaming departments such as slots, tables and cashiering use the system to investigate customer disputes to successfully promote customer satisfaction.

The surveillance system also needs to comply with the high standards set by gaming laws designed to protect casinos and punters alike, promoting fair gaming at all times. An HD surveillance system is an invaluable tool in ensuring the integrity of casino games and the casino in its entirety. Department heads also use the surveillance system to monitor and report on staff performance and behaviour through constant target reporting. Regular punter scans provide facial identification images, used to track and identify known offenders, banned or excluded patrons.

As gaming experts, FutureVid Solutions designed a solution to mitigate known casino risks. Very specific camera positions are required to achieve the perfect gaming views, good enough to be certified by the relevant gaming regulator. These gaming views need to record for a set number of days in accordance with gambling laws. Detailed designs were refined in consultation with Sun International to address all known risks, comply with gaming regulations and offer Sun International the most cost effective solution to achieve these requirements.

The surveillance system is also fitted with microphones to provide audio recordings in predefined high-risk areas such as the cash desks and count room. Panic buttons connected to the surveillance system alert operators to incidents or events when triggered by gaming employees on the casino floor and in high-risk areas. Door alarm contacts connected to the surveillance system alert operators to doors opening to high-risk areas.

The superior image quality of Avigilon’s 1, 2 and 3 MP cameras assist greatly in providing the best evidence when recording footage at much higher resolution than standard definition analogue surveillance cameras. Furthermore, the system needed the functionality to integrate with casino systems, such as the Bally Online Slots System. This system informs operators of significant events on the slots floor in real time and provide operators with the opportunity to search stored video footage based on predefined Bally System Significant events, per slot machine. This integration done by FutureVid reduces the time of investigations significantly.

As a result of the product selection, high level of gaming expertise and ability to deliver in remote locations such as LATAM, Sun International awarded FutureVid Solutions the contract to design, supply and install the integrated gaming surveillance solution for their new development, Nao Sun Casino, scheduled to open in Cartagena, Colombia in 2015.

A key component to operate successfully on foreign soil is an emphasis by FutureVid/FireSpec on strategic partnerships with local operators from initiation, with the post-build phase in mind. Sun International signed an SLA with the company’s local partners Servicios Tácticos de Seguridad to maintain and support the system. In turn project engineers from South Africa are on 24/7 standby to respond to customer enquiries.

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