Machine and location security is a key issue for all amusement and gaming machine operators. Helen Fletcher looks at the main issues facing operators today and the systems in place intended to prevent problems occurring...

There are some security issues operators will have had to face since the early days with the prevention of theft and vandalism high up on their priority list. However, with the development of new games that can sometimes feature high-value prizes, InterGame was keen to find out if there are any additional issues operators now have to deal with.

According to MachineGuard, the crime reduction federation for the gaming and leisure industry in the UK, the gaming industry is targeted by what the police class as level two criminals that travel to commit a crime. These people pose problems for the police especially when it comes to identifying them and some forces have set up special units to deal with this category of offender.

MachineGuard has been operating a national crime database for the UK, since 2001. As well as collating and distributing information on criminals it is able to provide text and picture message alerts to its members.

According to Gary Pettengell, of MachineGuard, the gaming and amusement industry is currently experiencing more violent attacks and robberies in the urban areas and operators need to ensure their staff receive violence in the workplace training.

"Operators should seek advice from their local police station and make contact with their local neighbourhood policing teams," said Pettengell. "One of our members was seriously assaulted when closing his premises at night. We now sell personal attack alarms at a discounted rate to the industry."

For Pettengell, the main threats operators now need to be aware of are distraction techniques, criminals’ modus operandi when the police are called or they are apprehended, the machines currently being targeted, as well as all the various methods of attack.

At a recent MachineGuard National Security Symposium, which was attended by companies and organisations within the UK gaming industry, Michael Downing, of Northamptonshire Police, said: "A lot more operators need to be accessing and contributing to the MachineGuard database, which is an invaluable tool for the police when dealing with criminals that travel around the country."

MachineGuard has developed a system called the Secure Incident Recording and Community Engagement System, which is a powerful, secure, network-based application.

From speaking to several operators it would seem there is a clear distinction between the problems faced by street locations and amusement arcades and FECs.

For the street locations, operators are facing the same problems they have encountered from day one, people simply trying to break into the machines. It can vary from a child with a crow bar prying the game open, to employees stealing prizes, or in extreme cases people stealing the entire game.

But for some FEC operators there are additional problems and according to Chris Cotty, who operates an FEC in the US, the issues he has to deal with include: break-ins, anti-drugs efforts, the safety of patrons in the establishment, and now, anti-terrorism awareness.

"In the FEC we make sure all our employees are trained in general safety and gang/terrorism awareness by our own staff security experts," said Cotty. "We also have video monitors covering every inch of the public area of the business and an alarm with a panic feature that links directly to the police."

For the street locations Cotty told InterGame that to keep break-ins to a minimum standard heavy duty over under coin doors with an internal cross bar in front of the coin box are used, as well as an external hasp over the door, a high security Abloy key lock on the door and then a heavy duty industrial padlock on the hasp.

This might sound like a lot of locks and bars but when you are leaving your machines in a street location, where there might not be as much supervision as you would like, it is essential that you cover your tracks making the machine as secure as possible.

According to Cotty the one thing he would like introduced by machine manufacturers is a coin door/lock assembly made of heavier grade steel so people cannot pry the door open with a screwdriver.

The view that stronger cash boxes and padlock brackets need to be introduced by machine manufacturers is one also shared by Gary Walker, managing director of Coin Cascade, based in New Zealand, which operates Time Out and Time Zone FECs.

"We always change over cash boxes on games imported and put a much stronger door on with padlock brackets," said Walker. "A good game on NZ$2 per play can easily earn $500 - $800 per week and at specific times during the year, such as school holidays, the machines are targeted for break-ins.

"For us, better coin entry slots and stronger cash boxes with padlock brackets would be a great introduction from manufacturers. I also feel the cash boxes should be hidden behind a metal panel so they are not so obvious."

In New Zealand there are two main problems with security in the street operations - cash and prize security.

"Prizes on top games like LAI’s Stacker tend to be high value items and we have found from time to time that the glass has been broken and the prizes stolen. Because of this we now use coupons instead of the real prizes."

The arcades operated by Coin Cascade don’t tend to experience the same problems as the street locations as the company now uses the Embed debit card system, which eliminates customer and staff security problems as far as cash is concerned. The system is adaptable to almost any coin-operated game but is predominantly used in arcades and FECs where the mix of machines is predominantly made up of video, redemption, rides and attractions.

Essentially all the coin mechanisms in the games are replaced with swipe readers - games are then activated by a card swipe rather than a coin drop. Customers purchase a card and credit for game play from a cashier point or self-service kiosk.

According to Adam Steinberg, of Embed, the system works a bit like a card from a bank where no actual financial information is stored on the card itself but on the system server.

"The card acts as the customer’s access to their account," said Steinberg. "This is great for security of account information and also allows for easy replacement of lost or stolen cards."

The Embed system also has clear advantages to operators in that they can feel confident that all the cash in the business is being accounted for correctly as all sales and play transactions are fully tracked by the system, providing the operator with a full audit trail of all customer and staff activity.

As well as this in the past it might have been necessary for operators to employ security guards to patrol the location, watching for theft and break-ins, which is not only costly but can send a negative message about the industry and the location in particular.

According to Walker, the Embed system has additional benefits in that with the special offers Coin Cascade able to offer its customers through the card system, such as family discounts, free game every day and double dollars day, etc, families and children easily pick up the process and parents are doubly happy because they can swipe the card and actually check on the types of games their children are playing.

Cory Haynes of US-based operator Dave and Busters agrees that the card swipe system developed by some companies is one of the best security products to date to hit the market.

"It lowers the number of times people have to handle cash," said Haynes. "And with the kiosk dispensing units now available it has created a more secure cash handling process than ever before."

As Dave and Busters is more of an FEC environment it too has different security issues to that of a street location operator. "We have ‘captains’ that walk the floor greeting guests, keeping incidents to a minimum," said Haynes. "Our main security concerns are coins, coupons, merchandise and cards for our swipe card system."

At Dave and Busters locations coins are tracked and issued by managers only, as are the coupons. Merchandise is tracked through an inventory system and balanced each week through a point of sales system. The point of sales system is tied into the card swipe system for the games, which also helps the company track card usage.

Haynes would, however, like to see a more secure way of handling and tracking coupons dispensed out of the machines introduced as well as a low-cost RFID technology for tracking merchandise, and redemption games that have more security and cash handling features.

When it comes to cash security a problem that some gambling and electronic gaming machine operators experience is the reliability of soft and hard meter readings in machines and the effects are especially felt in street locations.

According to Ivan Camilleri, of Camilmac Services, an independent consultant and service provider to operators of casinos, street market operations and FECs, taking hard meter readings from machines can be timely and expensive and can often fail, and be confusing, especially as the analogue meter tends to roll over more often if the machine has been tokenised. However, relying just on soft meter readings can be dangerous.

"One operator we consulted has been hit badly this year by an ex-employee who took copies of keys," said Camilleri. "Knowing that the operation takes only soft meters the ex-employee visited the street location operations and made deals with other employees to clear the soft readings and share the profits before the company’s staff got to the machines."

Camilmac Services intervened and set up security systems to see why the machines were making such a loss and after months of investigating the employee was caught and taken to court.

"Some boards do not have sufficient security features to prevent tampering with the internal workings," said Camilleri. "We have found some manufacturers’ boards, especially in the street market, can be easily set up for wins and tampered to the point of great losses to operators unaware of employees misdealing."

Camilmac manages its security services with a mixture of relationships from site owners, management and collectors. "An operation needs to manage the relationships between the human elements to reduce the chance of internal theft or fraud," Camilleri added. "Employees and location owners and managers we work with are screened as a matter of course and operators need to make sure they rotate their collectors among different routes and have technicians collecting meters on the fly, separately."

Camilleri went on to say that operators need to help themselves by organising their company’s activities to work in harmony with whatever they choose to introduce as security products.

"I have seen operations introducing monitoring and CCTV only to be used by passive measures and when they are needed, they often find they have not been maintained and that there are shortfalls in their ability to give them answers on security issues," he said.

"CCTV is a classic example, in that most operations rely on the digital recordings, forgetting they must check cameras are functioning, recordings are in fact being made and that camera positions are at their optimum. Operators often forget to re-organise their cameras after changing floor designs."

According to Alistair Babington, of 2SeeTV, based in the UK, the advent of the digital video recorder has been the biggest advancement in CCTV technology and it allows a high resolution for clearer images and faster recording rates. There is also no need to change the tape daily and they can record for a much longer period of time.

Choosing the right type of CCTV equipment is however essential to the type of location machines are operated in, as Babington explains: "Our systems can be tailor made to suit the customer’s requirements and budget. Cameras are recommended that will produce images in the relevant lighting conditions, for example, night vision cameras might be needed for unlit entrances and exits.

"It is easy to specify a camera that will give a lovely view of a room and the people in it, but operators need to ask themselves whether they can identify each person."

According to Babington if the wrong lens is fitted to the camera a person can appear small and hard to identify and the Home Office, in the UK, has issued guidelines as the amount of the screen size a person needs to fill to aid identification.

So what preventative measures are available to operators to ensure the machines are more secure? To tackle the issue of stronger cash boxes, locks and padlocks, Camlock Systems based in the UK, has developed a product specifically for the gaming and amusement industry - its flexible cable strap lock.

According to the company, it protects gaming machines against unauthorised access and is already proving a popular choice with operators due to its discreet, unobtrusive design.

Stephen Farnsworth, managing director of Camlock, told InterGame that most security straps currently in use consist of a rigid metal bar bolted to the bottom portion of the machine that is secured by a padlock.
"These are invariably unsightly and in most cases do not protect the vulnerable top front-opening door of the machine cabinet," he said. "Our cable strap lock has been specifically designed to secure the top front-opening door of a cabinet and is unobtrusive yet very strong."

The flexible cable strap lock boasts a minimum breaking force of 2.5 tonnes and uses an industrial strength heavy-duty cable with carbon steel end terminals for maximum resistance to attack.

Another security issue machine operators need to be aware of is the circulation of fraudulent notes and although over the last few years banks and currency producers have greatly improved security features, particularly on banknotes, incorporating elements that are exceptionally difficult to counterfeit, there are still fraudulent notes in circulation.

The casino sector is obviously a bigger target than the amusement sector when it comes to counterfeit fraud, with amusement machines more likely to be targeted for mechanical attacks, which is why it is essential for all machine manufacturers and operators to ensure they use a sufficient and appropriate bill and ticket acceptor for their needs.

Mike Innes, of UK-based Money Controls, told InterGame: "We work with all the major slot machine manufacturers and also deal directly with operators to ensure they have the most secure money-handling products for their needs.

"While unsupervised locations are naturally more prone to criminal attack, no location is entirely safe and therefore all of our products are designed with the highest level of security irrespective of their intended location."

For the casino industry Money Controls’ Ardac Elite bill and ticket acceptor has become well established within the sector thanks to its high reliability rate when detecting fraudulent notes. It uses imaging technology and is able to take an image of the whole of each bill, using a number of frequencies, providing 200,000 data points for analysis by the high-speed data processing unit. This enables the Ardac Elite to identify the latest security features anywhere on the bill.

For the amusement sector, which as mentioned can suffer from mechanical attacks, Money Controls’ Luminar Rotor bill acceptor is ideal as it incorporates an active anti-phishing device and, combined with its excellent fraud detection, provides one of the highest levels of security around.

According to a spokesperson for Innovative Technology, a UK-based company that also makes validators for the gaming and amusement industry, security requirements can differ from customer to customer, from country to county and from location to location and therefore it offers a wide range of products to be able to deliver what the customer requires.

Innovative Technology’s products use a unique SPF technology which results in an industry acceptance rate of 99.8 per cent, applicable to all datasets and making the validators suitable for worldwide use.

For Innovative Technology it is important to stay one step ahead of the criminals, meaning reaction time is everything. "Fraudsters will always try to be ahead of us, but it is the time you need to get a solution for the customer that makes the difference," said the company spokesperson.

"With our technology we can respond within days or less to find a solution, which can then be emailed to customers allowing them to update their units with handheld programmers, MMC cards or laptops very quickly.

For John McManus, of Spanish manufacturer Azkoyen, which also provides validator products to the gaming and amusement industry, but for coins, the first requirement of any machine manufacturer is to purchase compatible and interchangeable validators and hoppers, from different suppliers, in order to maximise flexibility and minimise the number of non-standard items.

Azkoyen is well placed to supply a range of both validator and hopper products to meet this requirement and is also able to offer state of the art digital technology within its coin validator products to ensure the highest levels of security in an industry standard housing.

"The modular design of the component parts of the validator range means the key coin validation sensing module is interchangeable between different models and makes certain that validation security is maintained on all applications," said McManus. "Our range of clip on modular sorters allows for flexibility of coin separation and diversion as required. The hopper range includes our innovative multi-coin extractor disc, which is not offered by all manufacturers, and coin counting by means of microprocessor controlled optical sensing, this ensures the security and reliability of coin management within the machine."

The demands of gaming manufacturers are straightforward - they want the highest levels of security, reliability and performance of coin validators and hoppers at the best market price they can achieve and they also want compatibility and interchangeability.

According to McManus some manufacturers prefer to single source all payment solution products whereas others are prepared to mix and match to obtain the best package.

"Manufacturers will expect products to continue to evolve and improve to combat fraud and maintain high levels of first time acceptance of true coins and accurate payout of prizes," he said.

As important as it is to have good validation equipment within a machine, it is as important to have effective machine management systems in place. Playsafe has been providing the industry with such systems for over 20 years and although the industry has changed the core requirements of good machine data, centralised control and automated processes have remained a key factor in all products.

"Local site based systems linked to central databases provide easy access to data relating to sites that will more than likely be spread over a large area," said David Stenning of Playsafe. "It gives the user the ability to look very quickly at the total estate regarding both security and machine performance and is a powerful tool in terms of monitoring machine issues."

Obviously the most important element of any security system is accurate information from the machine. If it is wrong or incomplete it is impossible to supply accurate results to the customer, no matter what system is supplied.

According to Stenning, machine manufacturers have improved the level of data coming from the machine but he reinforces the point made by Camilleri, when he says that security problems with machines can fall into three main areas: theft by staff, theft by the general public and the ability to try and defraud the machine with some form of cheat in the game.

So where do we go from here? Will new problems continue to arise with the innovation of new products, or will suppliers of security products continue to keep one-step ahead of the fraudsters and criminals?

"A total awareness of machine revenue should be a major consideration for the protection of any machine operating business," said Stenning. "So the monitoring of machine income in a more analytical manner is of utmost importance to get the best possible return."

There continues to be much advancement in the areas of transactional monitoring and tracking of customers and assets, and new technologies will therefore continue to provide more detailed information on these elements to operators.

It could also be argued that the widespread implementation of server-based gaming, particularly in the casino sector, will begin to have a very positive effect on the security of the industry.

"Whether we like it or not the age of Big Brother is upon us," said Steinberg. "And new technologies will continue to enhance the ability to provide even tighter security controls."

However, as far as Pettengel sees it, the majority of crimes suffered in the industry would be preventable if it would only adopt a cohesive strategy to tackle crime. "The industry has historically concentrated on developing security kits after a new fraud has been identified, which is obviously very important, but a more proactive approach is needed," he said. "We know who the hardcore offenders are and we need to target them - as soon as they are spotted operators should be communicating with others to alert them.

"For this to work effectively, however, we need greater participation by all sectors of the industry in order to prevent crime displacement and I would hope operators will begin to buy into this concept."