$1.5M Robbery of Bellagio Casino Foiled Thanks to RFID Chips | Hacker News Reader

$1.5M Robbery of Bellagio Casino Foiled Thanks to RFID Chips

singularityhub.com

From the comments over there:

"This is nonsense, they didn't catch him by using RFID chips, they caught him with police work. He was an idiot, and told anyone that would listen that he had the chips. People came forward, a sting buy was set up, he was arrested after selling them to undercover LEOs. Read the police report, there is no mention of RFID chips.

Police Report: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://media.lasvegassun....

This is just marketing by a company that is trying to sell the technology to other casinos."

The writer doesn't have anything mixed up. Most of the chips were large value denominated and hence nearly all of the stolen chips were worthless the moment the thief walked out the door.

Also, the article is not claiming the thief was captured because of the RFID. The article is simply highlighting how the RFIDs in the chips foiled the thief by making the chips worthless almost immediately, and then goes on to highlight how RFIDs within chips are enabling casino operators to track user behavior in new and novel ways. The focus of the story is not that RFID was used to catch the bad guy, rather the focus is on how RFID tech within these chips has changed casino operation, from user tracking, to "turning off" stolen chips on demand.

What do you consider "large value denominated" and where did find out what the breakdown was? In my book "large value" in a 1.5 mil heist would be $5,000 and higher. My guess would be that most chips were $100, $500 and $1,000 chips. But AFAIK, Bellagio hasn't released any of that information.

As I heard on the radio (I cannot attest to its truthfulness) -- the thief was trying to sell 'cranberries', or $25,000 chips.

The fifth sentence of the first paragraph of the linked article is "Thanks to RFID tags embedded inside them, the chips with denominations of $100 to $25,000 could be immediately deactivated rendering them unredeemable for cash value."

He was caught because he did stuff like sending photos like the following to members of the poker forum he frequented:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DaIlH1TvGHA/TUsgWhzTV0I/AAAAAAAAAG...

If I got away with something like this, I'd want to brag via message boards too.

I believe the writer has his information mixed up. Bellagio doesn't have RFIDs in the lower denominational chips. It's rumored to be in the $5,000 chips and above. Newer properties like the Wynn hotel put RFIDs in all their chips because they're the ones who have the play tracking tables he wrote about.

He wasn't caught because of the RFIDs in the chips, he was caught because he was trying to sell the $25,000 chips. In fact, he was gambling with the smaller chips and lost over $100,000. If those had the RFIDs in them, they would have caught him sooner. Instead he should have kept all the smaller chips and thrown the larger ones into a river and forgotten about them. It would have still been a nice haul.

> If you’re using high-rolling chips you can almost guarantee that a casino knows what you’re up to. Turns out Big Brother is alive and well, playing craps in Las Vegas.

After I originally read the article, I was about to take my chips that I have from a recent casino trip to a belt sander. But then I read your comment. I think the writer knew what he was talking about (the high-roller chips disclaimer) but couldn't resist breathlessly hyping up the Big Brother aspect.

But then I read this comment in the original thread:

5 points by vegasbrianc 54 days ago | link

"As engineer for the Casino Industry 99% of the casino RFID solutions on the market track all chips all denominations. The Casino RFID system is used in multiple ways - Tracking players bets - Ensure the dealer is paying out or taking in the correct chips - Accurate accounting - Fraud Prevention So next time you go to the casino remember they are tracking you even when you cannot see it."

Even if they're are RFID's in the chips themselves, the table still has to have scanning equipment to read the payouts and that's expensive. Not all casinos use that to track play and payouts. I believe Bellagio uses old school tracking with pit bosses going around writing down your play from time to time.

I'm having trouble understanding the technical possibility of chips being deactivated in this scenario. I see from the police report it wasn't, but just wondered anyway.

If someone grabs X chips, where X is quite a high number, and walks out the door - are the numbers registered as they go, and can be deactivated thereafter?

Can a high value of X be scanned and stored by RFID technology? How are legit walk-outs and stolen separated?

Also, I see mention of the technology "Spotting a dealer accidentally shorting a player" - is this technology that granular that a transaction like that can be logged accurately?

Just curious if anyone can indulge me.

IANAM. Hypothetically, I gather that they have a database of 'activated' chips. If it goes through door, it's logged (similar how there's beepers at a shop if you accidentally didn't pay for something). When a large amount of chips leave within 30 seconds, the casion owners went to the database and marked the chips as 'stolen'. If the person claims it wasn't stolen, the casino has cameras to follow up.

If a chip was later used in the casino, the teller would swipe it to read from database. Ideally, it would raise a flag and be refused to be exchanged for money (stolen goods).

Thanks for the reply. I looked this up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_reading

"Bulk reading is a means for orienting in conduct of logistics processes, but caused by a higher quote of reading failures, not suitable for inventory management."

So I am still unsure how they could, as the PR is stating, 'turn off' a selection of chips reliably.

I guess it's a mute point as the Bellagio swapped out all chips, and therefore the RFID inside any/all.

I'm more amazed at currency being accepted at all, the North Korean "Super $100" I hear is nearly perfect but slot machine bill validators still rejected it.

It's one thing to have custom made chips with RFID, notches, decals and who knows what else but to accept paper as a valuable item seems to risky yet most counterfeit bills are rejected all the time.

I think it's more accurate to say that it was foiled because of good old police work. An undercover investigation and a sting (plus a large amount of his own stupidity) is what brought the guy in. The embedded RFID stopped the high value chips ($25,000) from being cashed in, but there were still plenty of lower denominations that could have been used.

Interestingly enough, after the heist the Bellagio replaced ALL the chips on the floor with a complete new set. It would have been pretty suspicious when somebody strolled in with $25,000 chips...even without the RFID at that point.

I guess we won't be seeing Ocean's Fourteen

there was previously some discussion and speculation about these chips on hn, when the story was originally reported

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2023413

Why was he not caught when himself or one of his associates attempted to pass off the chips at the casino, he obviously found out some way they were worthless. I am really surprised the Bellagio cage allowed someone with a chip that couldn't be cashed to walk away AFTER a robbery had recently taken place... The whole chain of events is suspect.

In other hand, I would like to have a close look at the high value chips using RFID technology especially that the cashier has usually more confident in those ones. But that's another side of the story...

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