An acquaintance of mine that isn't an AP returned from a trip to Vegas. He had an interesting story about the casino "cheating" his friend out of money while playing craps.

I was not so much interested in yet another dubious story involving Vegas casinos cheating you in the 21st century, but rather one specific aspect of the story - the quality of photos taken from EITS from a major casino in the strip.

The story goes that that one of the base dealers overpaid the friend, who had been using some type of progression betting system that repeatedly swapped the types of chips used. (An example would be using one black chip and three greens, then using four greens for a separate come-out round. A total of four chips each time, just colors changing.)

While playing for an extended period, the boxman gets called over by pit personnel and returns to the table, asking the friend to step aside to talk. He explains that the dealer overpaid and surveillance needs him to return some chips. The friend refuses to do anything without evidence and the casino shows him photographs of the player's bet and the dealer mispaying.

The friend asks to take a closer look at the photos, pulls out his phone, and snaps a picture of one of the sheets containing several photographs before the casino personnel grab the papers back, telling him he can't do that. Supposedly he wanted evidence in case he needed to lawyer up.

Omitting the rest of the story, I asked my acquaintance to ask his friend to send a copy of the picture. Below are some observations:

1. There are many angles of one photo - If this isn't obvious when you look up, there are pictures of you from all angles and of the table from multiple angles. Any notion of hiding yourself with something like a hat does you zero service.

2. EITS photographs are extremely detailed - If anyone here cares about photography, some camera features:
  • LOW ISO - There is little grain despite the darker atmosphere of the casino. There is a great deal of clarity, from details of individual chips and color.
  • ZOOM CAPABILITIES - One of the photos is an optically zoomed (NOT digital) image from the same angle. No loss of clarity.
  • FAST SHUTTER SPEED - There is clear arm/hand movement captured in the photograph. The dice are mid-air and people moving in the background. The only blurred movement are the dice.


Mind you, this is what I'm able to observe from a photo of a photograph printed on paper. I can only imagine how much more detail is available to surveillance when looking at the raw images.

Welcoming any further questions. No I will not post the photo.