{"id":1597,"date":"2015-01-19T23:44:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T23:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondnumbers.lvablog.com\/?p=305"},"modified":"2023-06-21T11:08:14","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T18:08:14","slug":"frs-nsa-salamanders-and-scapegoats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/frs-nsa-salamanders-and-scapegoats\/","title":{"rendered":"FRS, NSA, Salamanders and Scapegoats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every few months, some rookie posts online about a surprising backoff incident, and then speculates, “I probably got nabbed by FRS (Facial Recognition Software).” I think I’ve got a soapbox sitting around here somewhere.<\/p>\n

No, dear rookie, you didn’t get nabbed by FRS. And I am here to assure you that while the NSA probably can listen in on your phone calls, they do not have satellite surveillance of your bet spread on that juicy 80% DD S17 LS game. (In fact, can we ban the use of the word “juicy” in describing BJ count games?) On top of that, the head of surveillance is not an ex-CIA operative, nor are you an internationally notorious assassin code-named “The Jackal.”<\/p>\n

Let’s understand FRS and its purpose. FRS is a search algorithm. It is useful when attempting to do an image search on a large database. Imagine that TSA has apprehended a suspected terrorist, a man who had a 5-oz tube of toothpaste in his carry-on. The man may be using fake documents, and may have changed his outward appearance since his previous arrests. The worldwide database of all criminals and terrorist suspects comprises millions of people. How can you look this guy up in the database? Since you have him in custody, you can take a perfect dead-on face shot, and compare that to the millions of dead-on mugshots in the database. The computer can search and find matches based on the unalterable geometry of a person’s face, among other factors.<\/p>\n

None of that has anything to do with the world of professional gamblers! First of all, FRS methodology is most effective when both the current photo and the previous photo are dead-on frontal shots. If you’re not in handcuffs in the back room, and if you avoid unnecessary exposure at the cage, then they don’t have a dead-on frontal photo of you now, and they didn’t have one previously. So FRS would not be a useful tool here. If you go the FRS demo at the annual industry convention, you’ll see that it’s a joke. They put an ID photo of Tommy Hyland into the database, and then show how a current ID photo of Tommy is “found” by the cunning FRS system. Oh please. The thing has a silly number of false positives, even with the artificially simple setup.<\/p>\n

Don’t believe the hype. Have you ever corrected a break-in dealer and then heard her say, “Surveillance would have caught that; they see everything.” That statement is as laughably naive as the rookie counter who whispers, “That casino uses FRS.” Even if you thought that the casino used FRS, who cares? Even if FRS were an appropriate, effective technology in this context (and I contend that it is not), it is no better than the simple, low-tech alternative of flipping through the binder.<\/p>\n

As part of our lawsuit against the Griffin Detective Agency years ago, we had temporary access to the Griffin Gold database. We checked to see how many hole-card players were in the database. 120. Total. Including dead people. If a surveillance guy sees you and wants to check whether you’re in the database, he can browse 15 thumbnails per page, and page-down through the eight pages in a few minutes. It’s a tiny database. You don’t need FRS algorithms to search it. Besides, how long does it take the surveillance guy to search the database when there’s a flyer of you sitting on his desk with the word “BOLO” on the top, or a photo of you taped to the wall of the break room? How long does it take them to search the database when the shift boss knows who you are on sight?<\/p>\n

How long does it take FRS to search the database, when you hand in a player’s card with the name “Tommy Hyland.” Get it? When you’re identified quickly, it’s because: (1) Someone recognized you, (2) There is a recent flyer being distributed with your photo on it, (3) You just used a poison name, or (4) You did something really stupid.<\/p>\n

And that’s why the mention of FRS hits a nerve with me. You never see high-level players complaining about FRS, or even speculating that FRS was the cause of their demise. It’s only the rookies who complain about the dreaded FRS. And why is that? Because they are making excuses for their own ineptitude. In most cases, these quick backoffs are the result of obvious, amateurish play, and poor game management. The players were foolish, and probably didn’t notice the various heat warnings that occurred (the pit boss making a phone call five minutes before the backoff, the weird question the boss asked when he looked up your player’s account, the dealer’s sudden half-shoeing of you, etc.), or they ignored or poorly responded to those heat warnings.<\/p>\n

Rather than admit their own poor decisions that led to a backoff, the rookies would rather create a fantasy: there was nothing I could do\u2014the casino uses FRS. Ahhh, so the backoff was due to the casino’s use of this devastatingly wicked technology, the unbreakable foe that is FRS. The backoff was so fast that it had to be FRS. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you won $4k the weekend before and increased your spread after they half-shoed you. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you slouched like Jabba the Hut while going for the hole card. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you chatted with another player who was previously backed off. Yeah, Occam’s Razor be damned\u2014had to be FRS!<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every few months, some rookie posts online about a surprising backoff incident, and then speculates, “I probably got nabbed by FRS (Facial Recognition Software).” I think I’ve got a soapbox sitting around here somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[84,90,100,162,184],"yoast_head":"\nFRS, NSA, Salamanders and Scapegoats - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/frs-nsa-salamanders-and-scapegoats\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FRS, NSA, Salamanders and Scapegoats - 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