Verticals
Gaming/Casinos
Security, availability, high-bandwidth operations, openness, multiple applications in a multi-vendor environment
Always bet on black – Leverage black, that is.
The businesses vary widely across the country and we have the pleasure of serving a very diverse base. Gaming in the Pacific Northwest is different than the Las Vegas or Atlantic City experiences, and all are removed from the throw-back style of the Mississippi paddle boats, with all their lore and tradition.
The experience and requirements for the Pacific Northwest Casinos is unique. The requirements are different because the foundation, cognitive framework and end-game are geared for more than profit.
Instead, they are focused on helping their community. So many Tribes are now using this economic model to build and sustain the best elements of providing for their people.
This means that a casino is one element, a key element, of the network. It is not the end-all, be-all. Some Tribes deploy powerful wireless networks that provide coverage to the entire Tribe, as well as to their hotel and lodge guests, and often the other Tribal businesses.
These networks have to be robust, future-proof, sophisticated and employ the highest level of security (it will often serve the Tribe’s hospital, banking and educational assets as well) and have high-bandwidth capabilities (think medical imagery, along with streaming media for multiple applications and deployment scenarios).
As with any business, customer stickiness is a priority, so some Tribes have used the network-linked consumer behavior demographics, recent purchases and other information to create proximity-based and custom offers that can be earned in the casino and redeemed in the mall or the spa, for example.
The fact is, when you go to Vegas, you're on camera, so smile big! The good news is that even the nuttiest antics go unchallenged, as they are often unremarkable against the backdrop of the next drunker knucklehead cutting loose for a weekend. However, the casinos need to ensure that said antics don’t interfere with the pleasure of other guests.
As you might expect, one of the more predominant concerns in the traditional gambling cities is curtailing losses from card-cheats, other tricks and especially against the inside job. Surveillance is king. Great surveillance is emperor and it allows you to trust and verify those in your employ. It deters their involvement, and without that, the cheater factor yields little more than a few bucks and some free drinks.
At the end of the day, chasing card counters and sleight-of-hand experts matters little in the wake of a cyber theft, be it millions in “cash,” lost credit card data from patrons or simply a hole to provide future access to the greater depths of your security measures, these losses are measured in the realm of big.
Just as losing gamblers avoid a tail tucked between its legs posture, so too are the casinos loathe to talk about the gravity of their losses, although one offered up that a single, successful cyber heist netted more than all of the floor-level scams, in aggregate, over his twenty years of service.
That same customer explained that when it comes to the information technology that powers casinos, the casinos never gamble.
