Richard Paris, director of security for Fallsview Casino and Casino Niagara, neighbouring and affiliated gaming establishments in Niagara Falls, Ont., is acutely aware of the power of information. The establishments he looks after recently installed the iTrak platform from iView Systems, based in Oakville, Ont., to give them a better understanding of what goes on on the gaming floor, under the cameras.

Fallsview and Casino Niagara were using a software package from another vendor, but it lacked flexibility and functionality, says Paris. They were still recording data manually, relying on paper and phone calls to communicate between departments and internally within security. With 260 security officers on staff between the two casinos, there was no shortage of information.

“A lot of previous functions were manual paper-based. Dispatching, for example, was all just done manually. Another department would call us on the phone, security would write it down on a paper log sheet and dispatch someone,” says Paris, who joined Casino Niagara as security director in 2001, moved to Fallsview, the larger of the two casinos, in 2003 and currently manages both.

The casinos now use the iDispatch module, allowing them to have a permanent electronic record of the movements of the security department. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of dispatch entries a day, says Paris.

“Security is able to view on the system which officers are available and assign duties based on that information,” explains Paris. “Through a drag and drop process, which is very simple, the system captures who was assigned, what time they were assigned, when it was completed, how long it took . . . all the reporting data that’s useful for us to manage our operation on a day-to-day basis.”

The iDispatch system has been particularly useful when it comes to tracking the movement of money around the casino floor — one of the security department’s main functions. Prior to the system being installed, a request for cash would come in by phone. Now those requests can be generated electronically from a workstation. “They can just key in an order: ‘We need security with this amount of money to go from this location to that location.’ That is electronically sent to our dispatching centre,” says Paris.