We-Ko-Pa Casino Resort Selects Hanwha Vision

for Camera Quality and Functionality

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“We were looking for a manufacturer that had a variety of camera offerings to give us what we wanted and that also had a good reputation for quality. We found what we were looking for with Hanwha Vision. The state inspector from the Arizona Department of Gaming, which provides specific mandates for gaming operators in the state, was quite impressed with the image quality and the smoothness of the recordings.”

– Lee Brown, Lead Surveillance Technician for the Fort McDowell Tribal Regulatory Agency

♦ Challenge

Originally constructed as a bingo-hall-style building by the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation in the early 1990s, We-Ko-Pa Casino Resort gained approval to be remodeled into a fully-fledged gaming facility in 2017. The renovation included a new video surveillance system to ensure the safety of staff and visitors.

The main goal of video surveillance was to design camera coverage for the slot floor in the new facility. The area proved to be demanding in part because it was designed to be flexible and modular. The new design allows the Casino to be dynamic in terms of where they place machines. The challenge then was how to ensure coverage of every machine even as they move around daily.

They initially considered attaching cameras to the ‘cloud’ ceiling so that the cameras can be moved as the configuration changed. But, this was not possible because the camera floats below a concrete ceiling.

♦ Solution

Instead, the Casino decided to use the higher resolution P series 4K cameras of Hanwha Vision and place them strategically throughout the space. The number of cameras available from Hanwha Vision was a key differentiator for the We-Ko-Pa Resort as it enabled them to choose the right camera for every situation.

“We had to be very careful in where we placed our cameras. We sought high quality and flexibility to avoid having to reconfigure and reinstall cameras all the time. The image quality with the Hanwha Vision cameras gave us the edge we needed to work within our ceiling constraints,” says Lee Brown.

Today, the new Casino has over 800 Hanwha Vision cameras, including the XNV-8080R, PNV-9080R, and PNF-9010R models.

♦ Result

We-Ko-Pa Resort adopts a video surveillance design that efficiently monitors slot machines and the Wisenet WAVE VMS (Video Management System) that helps operators with live monitoring. The layout system in WAVE makes it easy to organize cameras into groups, allowing security operators to follow someone through the Casino.

Currently, We-Ko-Pa has 500 terabytes (TB) of redundant ZFS-based network storage. They use motion-based high/low recording to reduce the storage requirements for video surveillance footage. If no motion is detected in a frame, the camera is set up to record at very low quality and low frame rate. If the camera detects motion, then the recording automatically shifts to high-quality mode.

We-Ko-Pa Resort picks as its favorite feature the quality they deliver at low bitrates. Lee says, “The majority of our cameras face intense and volatile lighting changes against a backdrop of complex scenery with many moving objects. Hanwha Vision cameras and their advanced WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) technology can easily be configured to accommodate these conditions without sacrificing quality or producing obnoxious data streams.”

Moving forward, the Casino is excited about future possibilities for their system, including people counting and using their WAVE VMS to make data-driven decisions.