How to Maintain a Direction of Attention

Employees of a surveillance room must be alert and attentive at all times with their focus facing outward. When focus is diverted to the surveillance room and the employees inside, trouble ensues. Political games and other foolishness may occur with the casino floor being neglected.

Where to Keep the Focus

Employees of the surveillance room should always be watching games, cages, slots, count rooms, pits, change booths as well as monitoring all activities of security. The only reason an operator should be focused on the surveillance room is to monitor equipment to ensure it is working correctly. This includes ensuring that logging and reporting are completely correctly.

This is a shared responsibility between operators and the Director of Surveillance. In addition to camera coverage, the director is primarily focused on scheduling, equipment repairs and the addition of any equipment.

Higher Management

Despite these responsibilities, supervisors and directors must maintain an outward focus as well. They must act as a connection between the security, cage, slot and pit departments. Also, they must keep in constant communication with casino management to ensure a smooth transfer of information.

Common Inward Focuses

Within a surveillance room there are many distractions and inward focuses that can occur. Some of these include, others in the surveillance room, rivalries between individuals and departments, internal concerns and others on different shifts. Meanwhile surveillance of the casino floor and coverage areas is neglected.

Errors that may occur during this transfer of focus include, a lack of tap rewinding and missing tape entries into the log. Major errors include, cameras being left off of a specific game and incorrect information being communicated to co-workers and superiors.

Handling These Issues

The best response to these errors is to fix them and move on, not waste time tracking who made the blunder. Many managers opt to send out a general notice or memo to the staff regarding the issue at hand. A heavy internal investigation is usually not needed. A memo can be just as effective while continuing to keep the department focused on the gaming floor.

Like any work area, there are distractions. However, in the casino industry, these distractions and mistakes could cause major liabilities and cost significantly more than just lost productivity. Therefore, keeping your attention in the correct places not only helps you with an excellent review, but also significantly helps the casino.

Following the Surveillance Hierarchy

Hierarchies are found in all organizations within all business sectors. They consist of your supervisor and direct reports. A well-defined hierarchy is better for morale, the creation of company culture, efficiency and productivity. Within a standard hierarchy, orders come from the top down when correctly routed.

Within the surveillance room at a casino, hierarchies are extremely important. One common example of a chain of command in a casino is:

1)      Surveillance Investigator reports to:

2)      Surveillance Supervisor who reports to:

3)      Surveillance Director who reports to:

4)      General Manager

Also reporting into the General Manager is:

1)      Casino Manager

2)      Slots Director

3)      Security Director

Reporting into the previous three are:

1)      Casino Shift Manager

2)      Slots Shift Manager

3)      Table Games Manager

Within the surveillance room there are two primary types of hierarchies:

• Those within the surveillance room
• All other departments

There is one simple rule within the surveillance room: no one outside of the surveillance department hierarchy demands orders to the surveillance room staff. Instead, the requests must pass through the proper chain of command. There are certain actions that must be approved by the Surveillance Director. This includes the release of original recordings, composite recordings, special observations and information.

Internal matters relating to personnel issues must also be distributed through the surveillance hierarchy starting with the Director. These instances include ideas, complaints, suggestions and personnel change. For example, the ideal process for an investigator to give an idea to the Director is for them to write it down, give it to the Supervisor who will then give it to the Director. Verbal suggestions are not the route to take as they often are forgotten or overlooked.

Unfortunately, within this type of hierarchy, the Supervisor can easily present the suggestion as his own. Although unfair and deceitful, this type of behavior does occur and when discovered by others, greatly diminishes the Supervisor’s credibility and respect.

It is always important to know the chain of command within other departments. This will help you be more productive, get the answers needed in a reasonable amount of time and generate favors.

Like any type of business, it is important to follow the chains of command within the surveillance room. Those that cannot conform do not last long in their role. A clearly defined hierarchy improves communication, efficiency, productivity and builds excellent report among many different departments.