Question about casino record-keeping

July 23, 2009 9:06 PM

Question about casino record-keeping. Let's say I need to prove what someone did at a major national casino on a certain day, approximately two years ago. The person used his player's club card on every game he played, and he used the player's club card to get comped on one meal. The more detailed information I can get about his activities, the better. My question is two-part: (1) Can I expect the casino to still have detailed records of what this person did, or would the records have been purged/destroyed by now? (2) What will it take to get the casino to release the records? (You can assume the person will sign a release for me to get the records, but will not go to the casino in person.)
posted by anonymous to sports, hobbies, & recreation (19 answers total)

The casino will probably have the records for auditing purposes. They might not be easily accessible, though. And I would expect them to refuse to release them without a court order, simply because producing them is a hassle while refusing to produce them is easy.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:27 PM on July 23, 2009

1) A subpoena, probably and 2) a lawyer, definitely.
posted by Happydaz at 9:30 PM on July 23, 2009

From my dealings with casinos (not as a player, as a gaming machine vendor to them), they don't want to tell anybody anything. If they could operate totally opaquely, they would. Even basic questions like, "Okay, so how many people do you expect to be using this workstation?" get flak about, "Well, that depends. Why do you need to know?"

The folks above are right: they're not going to produce the records without a court order. Not because they're protecting the privacy of their patrons, but because they'd prefer you not know anything about their operations.

But I promise you they have those records. They have reports on everything. A casino is better instrumented than the space shuttle. Whether or not the reports are aggregated, though, is another story. The history of slots play, for instance, is probably tied up in their slots accounting system; the lunch is in their hospitality database. Likewise, if it's two years old, the logs have probably been rotated into tape archives in a vault somewhere. Even if they were willing to reveal the slightest detail, it'd require hours and hours of work to locate and retrieve the records. Unless the consequence of refusal is sanctions and fines, they're not going to help you.

Sorry.
posted by Netzapper at 10:18 PM on July 23, 2009

1. They will have it. If you can tell which casino, I can probably guess which player tracking system they're using.

2. You won't get it.

Netzapper - you're partially incorrect. Casinos are one of the few industries left that actually respect a person's privacy. The amount of time and money that goes into software development and process development to ensure that privacy would surprise you. Granted, the more money you spend, the more privacy you can expect, but they will go to some significant lengths to protect privacy.

Also, those records are almost certainly aggregated and separated. And almost certainly still online. Two years old is nothing. Some properties have records, online, active, and instantly retrievable, for individual slot sessions 10+ years ago.

One of the reasons you won't get it is that no employee wants to lose their license over what would sound like to them to be a trivial matter.
posted by krisak at 10:39 PM on July 23, 2009

Depending on the exact circumstances here, a subpoena may not be that difficult to come by if this matter is truly that important to you and you have a lawful reason for requesting the records. You'd need a lawyer, of course, and might potentially have to compensate the casino for their efforts in complying if they need to search through lots of records. Presumably, you'd have to pay court fees and process server expenses too. In other words, it wouldn't be cheap, but it may be possible. Get thee to an attorney.
posted by zachlipton at 10:39 PM on July 23, 2009

Joe - producing them is actually pretty easy. They do it all day long - it's how they make many of their decisions for whether or not to comp.
posted by krisak at 10:40 PM on July 23, 2009

Netzapper - you're partially incorrect. Casinos are one of the few industries left that actually respect a person's privacy. The amount of time and money that goes into software development and process development to ensure that privacy would surprise you.

I wrote that software. And yes, privacy was important and protected constantly. Except, of course, when people decided to cut development time--"XOR encryption's good enough, dude." The frequency of that happening would surprise you. The industry protects privacy just as long as it's making them money, and not a moment thereafter.

That said, I found that the casinos were utterly and completely uninterested in sharing even the most trivial detail of their operations with outsiders. Even when we were writing software for them.

However, it's news to me that they keep their play log records online that long. The play logs on our systems were archived as they filled up (couple gigs), although aggregate data (hand totals, game totals, daily totals, players' cash out and in, etc.) was peeled off separately for storage and analysis on their main systems.

But I have no idea if that data was then associated with a PCC in the main system and kept in aggregate. Because, as I said, they wouldn't tell us what they were doing.
posted by Netzapper at 11:26 PM on July 23, 2009

There is a movie that has that as part of the plot, it's called Criminal. It's a remake of an Argentinian film Nine Queens.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:32 AM on July 24, 2009

Just a quick note -- I will be passing this question on to a former director of security at the Bicycle Casino. I imagine he may have a solid insight into this.
posted by splice at 4:15 AM on July 24, 2009 [1 favorite]

Director of surveillance, not security, I should have said.
posted by splice at 4:16 AM on July 24, 2009

They almost certainly still have the data, but you'd likely need a court order to get it.
posted by paulg at 6:43 AM on July 24, 2009

If it was a Harrah's casino, you can get your win/loss statements going back several years online by accessing your Total Rewards account. They have a lot more information than that, but they are almost certain not to release that information to a third party without a court order.
posted by Lame_username at 8:21 AM on July 24, 2009

Since this question is still live I'll clarify a bit. Netzapper and I clearly have experience with different player tracking software. I should say that many, but not all, casinos will have those records going back to as long as they had computers in the place. I would be surprised if they have records of every spin and every bet, but they would likely have a session summary, which times the time between when the player inserts a card and when they remove the card. Basically - every time they sat down and played an individual machine.

As for privacy, yes, their desire to guard privacy is due wholly to economic concerns - they need customers to trust them, otherwise no one will be willing to play at their casino. If you're interested in the operations side of things, there are a few books that explain their accounting processes, their record keeping, and even their cage and credit operations in great detail. It's a lot less interesting than you might think...

Customer data is one of the most valuable commodities within the industry. The recent TI sale almost got cancelled due to a dispute not over price, or physical assets, or personnel, but specifically over the customer database and all of those historical records.

With that said, most casinos are somewhat loathe to part with that data wholesale. However, depending on which player tracking software they're using, and what their policies are, you can possibly get to the information you're looking for by impersonating the person you're trying to investigate. Keep in mind that that's illegal in every jurisdiction I know of, so don't do it. In general, it's going to take some strong legal backing to ge those records. Without knowing which casino you're dealing with, I can't give any more than generalities.
posted by krisak at 9:10 AM on July 24, 2009

you can possibly get to the information you're looking for by impersonating the person you're trying to investigate.

It seems from the question like the person whose records these are is on board with getting them, so that authorization might help: the OP wrote:

You can assume the person will sign a release for me to get the records, but will not go to the casino in person.

So since the OP will be trying to get an individual's own records with the consent of that individual, the scenario is a bit different.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:32 AM on July 24, 2009

Woops, I missed that part, Sidhedevil, thanks for bringing that to my attention. I apologize - when I read the initial question it was after a really long work day and I was tired. My mistake.

In that case it looks like you may simply be able to take the release to the casino's player's club in person and they may be more than willing to hand over the records. That's the easiest thing to do, before trying to get any legal help. Different casinos will have different policies, but with a signed release (especially if you can get it notarized), they may not have an issue at all.
posted by krisak at 9:40 AM on July 24, 2009

For what it is worth, I have seen these detailed records attached to a criminal history/profile. Law enforcement and courts don't have any problems getting them, so it is at least possible.
posted by Sheppagus at 12:12 PM on July 24, 2009

The first thing I would do is ask the person whose records you want to call or otherwise contact the casino and tell them: "I need my win-loss records on day X for tax reasons. What's the procedure to get them?" (Or you could do that yourself.) Generally, casinos are pretty obliging about handing this stuff over, as long as you follow this procedure. The procedure is probably something as simple as: you fax them a completed request form. They will want some sort of proof of identity to make sure that the person is making the request is the same as the person who played the games, such as a Social Security number. You should be able to get some significant info if you have the person's cooperation. I have never asked for records about comped meals or anything like that and so I don't have any ideas there.
posted by Mr. Justice at 8:37 PM on July 25, 2009

And here's the answer from the aforementioned former director of surveillance:

The Casino will probably still have the information on their database. As for releasing the information it would probably take a subpoena for a private third party to get it. In other words there's got to be something going on in court that pertains to the records requested. Law enforcement usually can get anything the casino has as far as records or video is concerned. If the first party wanted the records and had a reasonable reason either the owner or the General Manager would have to approve it. I'm just speaking from my experience in California other locations may be different. For the Casino the best policy is to hand over nothing voluntarily.

And another answer from someone who knows casinos as well:

Data regarding credit card purchases and player tracking information, including comps, may very well be kept that long, but maintenance time frames are likely subject to jurisdictional requirements and/or company internal control policies.

Whether the information is releasable is also an issue of jursidctional requirments; might be considered if the purpose for the request for disclosure is directly related to a legal matter; and whether the Freedom Of Information Act is applicable. However, generally, the information required for disclosure under FOIA may be redacted to the point of rendering it unsuable for the FOIL-er's purpose. Most businesses today refuse to divulge anything about their employees or customers and are relucatant to turn over any information to a non-law enforcement third perty, regardless of a signed release from the subject permitting disclosure.

They seem to pretty much agree with each other. The information may still be there, but you're not likely to get it unless the law is involved somehow.
posted by splice at 4:23 AM on July 27, 2009

I just happened to re-read this question for some other purpose and have to object to the last answer from Splice's contact. The FOIA does not apply to private business records. The Freedom of Information Act is crafted very specifically to apply only to records held by the Federal Government. See ">the wikipedia article for more detailed information.
posted by Lame_username at 9:39 AM on August 6, 2009