Wynn Al Marjan Part 2
Yesterday, we described the features of the Wynn Al Marjan resort-casino in the United Arab Emirates, including its status as a node in an extensive surveillance grid. Today, we zero in on the tracking technology that will be in place within the casino.
Here, we're talking about casino checks embedded with radio-frequency-identification signal transmitters that determine average bets and actual number of hands played; surveillance cameras containing enhanced AI-driven facial-recognition capabilities; smart shoes that record cards and decisions, disallow dealer errors, and automatically export winning hands and side-bet combos to the scoreboards; and AI-based player tracking that accurately documents the size of every bet, the duration of every session, and the average house advantage of every playing decision. You can easily imagine tens of thousands of sensors in the casino, each a nerve ending in a growing and evolving digital organism.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, brain-wave readers marketed as lie detectors, facial-recognition eyeglasses for surveillance agents, even sentiment-analysis software designed to read moods will be deployed in the service of the casino's goal of maximizing every opportunity to wind up with the money.
And Al Marjan is the perfect incubator for this brave new world.
Every baccarat buy-in, every spin of the roulette wheel, every face entering a doorway, leaving a restaurant, or passing down a hallway can be captured, stored, and used for marketing purposes, often in real time. For example, you’re passing the ice-cream parlor and receive a text message: "We feel you should have a free cone on us" (never mind how we know your exact location). Getting up from a Dragon Links machine and walking past some Buffalo Golds: "Here's $5 just to get you started." Heading for the elevator to return to your room: "Tap to redeem $25 in free play that expires in the next 30 minutes."
Of course, as we mentioned in yesterday's QoD, all this information is cross-referenced against government databases of passports, visas, and customs entries. Because Wynn Al Marjan will be wired from Day One into a system designed not just to monitor a casino pit, but an entire population. A suspicious buy-in at a roulette game won't just flag an internal alert; it will instantly become part of a government-accessible file tied to that individual's travel history. Security can track a pickpocket or rail thief across the floor to the person they hand off the wallet or chips to, then monitor the confederate as they leave the building, tracing whomever they meet up with to dispose of the credit cards.
"All of this means Wynn Al Marjan won't just be the Persian Gulf's first resort-casino, or be remembered for its over-the-top promise of luxury-as-choice, or even its enclave-within-an-enclave exclusivity. Its deeper pitch is subtler: surveillance recast as service, premium monitoring offered up as the price of premium comfort."
The above quote and all these details come from a book we've been looking at lately called The Smart Table Revolution. The Wynn Al Marjan is a fine depiction of the smart tables, though the revolution proposed by the book has more to do with such technology operating in the background, while people -- the human element that casinos have always really been about -- reclaim the foreground. You'll be hearing more about this book soon.
Finally, there's the question of human rights in the UAE. That's beyond the scope of this answer, even in two parts. But a recent analysis by our own David McKee on CasinoReports.com delves into this question and is worth a read if you're at all interested in the initial phase of the expansion of gambling into what, until now, has been virgin territory.
