Here’s one of those questions that’ll get some peoples’ minds running:
Do slot machines recognize your face when you play the machine? And do know your finger tips?
Debora
We can scratch the fingertips scenario off the list pretty quickly. Casinos aren’t capturing your finger tips through the buttons or panels, so you can rest easy on that one.
But facial recognition is a technology casinos have been among the front of the line to leverage for some time now. There are a variety of helpful use cases.
For security, it can be a way to identify players previously banned from the casino, for instance, or help catch known criminals who may be on their floor. Even if it’s not used immediately, you might know that casinos will capture players cashing in chips.
During the mask-requirement era of the pandemic, casinos would have players show their whole face to be captured on camera in case of an issue later. With the amount of money that psses through casinos, a lot of care is taken to cover all bases.
Companies are now also pitching facial recognition in other ways. For instance, A company has pitched a facial recognition solution that can effectively take the place of a players card, and is now integrated in a couple of the biggest casino players card solutions.
It can in part help casinos track players who opt to play without a card and link their play sessions together to get insights on players who eschew a card.
We’ve also recently seen advertisements for a players kiosk that can use facial recognition to identify the person requesting a service, which can ensure the person at the kiosk is the one who’s requesting, for instance, a replacement card (and not using someone else’s ID, for instance).
Some might get concerned about this. Some players purposefully don’t use a card because they don’t want to be tracked. Here’s another recent submission that shares an example:
What’s the best way to encourage my friend to use her players card? She says she doesn’t want them to track her every move. I tell her it’s how I get my perks but she just believes they’re tracking her.
Mary Ann
Your friend should probably be aware that by stepping into a casino she’s already being captured on camera and in many facilities tracked anyway, so it might not be the best hobby or source of entertainment if that’s the concern.
But the other thing is that it’s sort of a trade-off. Casinos want to understand what sort of player you are so they can extend the offers to get you to return (the offers being the trade-off to sharing that data with them). They do this in a big data sort of way, so it’s not about you specifically moreso than putting you into a category of similar players that get similar offers, nothing more.
And of course then you have the benefit of a win/loss statement that can help you understand how much you’re spending over time, helpful for making sure you don’t spend more than you can afford.
But with new solutions and existing facial recognition, you’re probably going to get identified by the casino (if not now, in the future) whether you put your card in or not, so at that point you might as well take advantage of the perks that come with that trade-off by using that card.
So slots aren’t necessarily recognizing your face today – generally speaking that’s not tech built in by default – but the players card systems bolted onto them certainly are headed in that direction. Adoption and casino comfort (as well as player feedback – let them know what you think!) will impact when/how this is leveraged, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.
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