Longtime gaming attorney-turned law professor Anthony Cabot said companies at the recent Global Gaming Expo promoted software that used artificial intelligence for marketing and commercializing purposes in casinos.
Cabot, now a distinguished fellow of gaming law at the UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law, said the integration of facial recognition into the devices, was quite prevalent.
Helping gaming regulators and casino industry leaders gain an understanding of the technology is one factor behind the law school’s sponsorship of a one-day conference next month on artificial intelligence, biometrics and big data in the gaming industry.
Anthony Cabot
Cabot said exploring how the technology relates to casinos and whether there are best practices can be “valuable to the industry and regulators.”
He said the conference, scheduled for Jan. 17 at the law school, will cover topics that will “seismically alter” security and surveillance, responsible gaming, problem gambling, and marketing/customer retention.”
Participants will include regulators, gaming executives, and people from the technology sector who are interested in serving gaming.
The conference will cover technology for security uses and surveillance in how to better protect casino patrons from terrorist attacks and other violence. That includes the use facial recognition to prevent incidents. Also, the conference will delve into the use of technology for responsible gaming, citing how Australia and Japan looking to require that in casinos.
“It can identify people on the exclusion list for problem gaming to keep from playing,” Cabot said. “In Japan, they are talking about using it to enforce rules to allow people to gamble in a casino three days a week.”
One session will look at best practices and model gaming regulations, featuring UNLV law professor Ngai Pindell; Joe Bertolone, director of UNLV International Center for Gaming Regulation; Nevada State Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro; and Nevada Gaming Control Board member Terry Johnson.
“The session (will) be interesting because it will be futuristic looking where this might be going in terms of what we need to do from a knowledge perspective and what we need to do from a best practices perspective,” Cabot said.
The conference will feature Kim Mouridsen, a professor of neuroinformatics and neuroimaging at Aarhus University in Denmark. Cabot said the professor will explain the uses of the technology that monitors faces to determine whether the person is developing a gaming problem so casinos can intervene.
Additional speakers include Joseph Lombardo, executive director of the National Supercomputing Institute and Dedicated Research Network who will discuss surveillance and law enforcement; Thomas Soukup, chief systems product officer with Konami Gaming; Kevin Mullally, vice president of government relations and general counsel at Gaming Laboratories International; and Sanjiv Goyal, CEO of Extent AI.
Gaming regulators participating include Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairwoman Sandra Douglass Morgan, Illinois Gaming Control Board Executive Director Marcus Fruchter, and Missouri Gaming Commission Executive Director David Grothaus.
Other participants include Dan Cherry, corporate vice president of gaming operations with Penn National Gaming; Martin Lycka, director of regulatory affairs with GVC Holdings; John Celona, vice president for business innovation and technology strategy for Caesars Entertainment; and Katie Lever, chief legal counsel with the Drew Las Vegas.
The commercialization of technology will be a focus as casinos use data from patrons to customize the gaming experience and market to them.
One of the issues in data collection on people is how to protect it and make sure it is secure and only used for the collection’s purposes.
“I think it would be a problem for the gaming industry if there’s a huge data breach out there,” Cabot said. “It’s important that you be careful that you are using your customer’s data for purposes of which they were intended. If it’s being sold to a company that’s trying to sell timeshares in Florida, that has to be something that needs to be addressed.”
Gaming patrons opt into customer recognition through the use of casino player cards. Players enjoy receiving customized service and have their play recognized. However, facial recognition technology can track a customer who enters a casino anonymously to their Facebook profile to gather their information.
#exclusive – UNLV to host gaming conference on artificial intelligence, biometrics and big data. –@BrianBuckWargo, CDC Gaming Reports. https://t.co/pCCFzaLhTz @UNLVLaw @UNLVigi #CDCgaming
— CDC Gaming Reports (@CDCNewswire) December 9, 2019
“Maybe they are fine with that because they put their image out in public, but some may take offense because they haven’t opted in,” Cabot said.
As casinos collect more data on customers, there may need to be standards that every casino should follow, Cabot said.
“The worst headline the industry could suffer is if there were 2 million records of casino patrons hacked and exposed,” Cabot said. “With all this great technology comes great responsibility. There are no regulatory standards with regard to how you secure that data. Some casinos may be doing a terrific job, and I assume most are. But that doesn’t mean everybody is.”
Follow this link https://law.unlv.edu/event/artificial-intelligence-biometrics-big-data-gaming-industry-privacy-protections-and-public for registration information.
