Can AI Help Casinos Cut Down on Problem Gambling?

Other kinds of related detection of behaviors?

AI Technology Aimed at Gambling Addiction

By The New York Times, March 11, 2022

Researchers are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) as a way to potentially identify and predict problem gambling.

One program from Mindway AI, a company with ties to Denmark's Aarhus University, relies on psychologists to train AI algorithms to detect behaviors associated with problem gambling.

The program scores 14 risk factors from 1 to 100 and generates a risk assessment for each player.However, there are concerns about how to explain such data to players.   While some online gaming companies use pop-up messaging, texts, or emails, Mindway's Rasmus Kjærgaard said the data could be used to personalize phone calls to players...

Artificial intelligence as a solution to problem gambling “raised far more questions than it did answers,” said Alan Feldman, a distinguished fellow in responsible gambling at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas ... 

From The New York Times  

Robots Encourage Risk-Taking Behavior in Humans

 Fascinating premise, but highly context dependent,  would not go into a project with this idea strongly held.  Has some relationship to the 'Media Equation' concept, where trust where we trust robots more because they apparently have no hidden motives.    We used that method to drive us to assistant models. 

'The Robot Made Me Do It': Robots Encourage Risk-Taking Behavior in Humans By University of Southampton

Robots can encourage humans to take greater risks in a simulated gambling scenario than they would if the robot is silent, research shows. Increasing understanding of whether robots can affect risk-taking could have clear ethical, practical, and policy implications, according to "The Robot Made Me Do It: Human-Robot Interaction and Risk-Taking Behavior," published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

The research involved 180 undergraduate students taking the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a computer assessment that asks participants to press the spacebar on a keyboard to inflate a balloon displayed on the screen. With each press of the spacebar, the balloon inflates slightly, and 1 penny is added to the player's "temporary money bank." The balloons can explode randomly, meaning the player loses any money they have won for that balloon and they have the option to "cash-in" before this happens and move on to the next balloon.

One-third of the participants took the test in a room on their own, one third took the test alongside a robot that only provided instructions but was silent the rest of the time, and the third group took the test with the robot providing instruction as well as speaking statements such as, "Why did you stop pumping?"

The results showed that the group who were encouraged by the robot took more risks, blowing up their balloons significantly more frequently than those in the other groups did. They also earned more money overall.

"On the one hand, our results might raise alarms about the prospect of robots causing harm by increasing risky behavior," says Yaniv Hanoch, associate professor in risk management at the University of Southampton who led the study. "On the other hand, our data points to the possibility of using robots, and AI, in preventive programs such as anti-smoking campaigns in schools, and with hard to reach populations, such as addicts."

From University of Southampton

Gaming Industry Technologies

We often looked to to the gaming industry for hardware and software that was driving decisions and operations.  Here a good set of examples of current technology being used.

Media Services Getting Smarter

A continuing trend.  Intelligence can consist of including higher level services.  But these have to be correct and consistent under varying data contexts.  That last part is probably the hardest thing to achieve.  Contexts can be many things:  Industry, customer demographics, history of interaction ... and more.   Consider too the implications of of error varying under each context as well.  Note the mention of 'workflows' below, that also has the potential of specifying context.

Microsoft is bringing automatic video summarization, Hyperlapse, OCR and more to Azure Media Services
Azure Media Services, Microsoft’s collection of cloud-based tools for video workflows, is about to get a lot smarter. As the company announced at the annual NAB show in Las Vegas today, Media Services will now make use of some of the tools Microsoft developed for its machine learning services for video, as well. ... "

Need a Smart Home Air Freshener?

Brought to my attention.  Note the ability to link to smart home hub.  How much consumer interest will there be?   Novelty vs value?  Another leveraging of Febreze.

P&G's Sci-Fi Air Freshener Makes Your House Smell Smart
by  Stacey Higginbotham

Is this the end of the smart home being “cool?”

The engineers at Procter & Gamble have looked at the connected home with interest, and in nine months have come up with a product to test the waters. It’s a $49 connected Febreze plug that lets consumers release one of two scents into their home by using a smartphone app.

The company is showing off the device at CES, the big technology showcase in Las Vegas this week. While it may come across as the least exciting smart home technology ever, that is a mark in its favor ....  " .

Face Watch: Thief Recognition

Already much in use in Vegas casinos.  Categorizing facial images in real time based on stored images.   Implications of false positives?  Experiments described in the BBC.

"  ... A scheme widely used by UK stores to identify criminals is testing facial recognition technology, the BBC has learned.

Until now, Facewatch has provided local groups of businesses with a way to share their CCTV images of shoplifters and other potential offenders.

It is now giving shops the ability to generate alerts if a face recognition system matches individuals in the shared pictures to customers in their stores, as the BBC PM programme's Chris Vallance reports. ... "  

First Droneport under Construction

Regulation is still  evolving for the concept, but given that the concept requires location and technology, it makes sense.  In FastCompany:  World's first Droneport under construction near Las Vegas.   The Aerodrome will provide education and certification for drone pilots, as well as facilities for drone racing and other services.  ... " 

Amazon Launches IOT Platform Beta

Am a subscriber to AWS, will examine.   In Infoq:

' .... At Amazon’s recent re:Invent developer conference in Las Vegas, the company announced a new Internet of Things (IoT) platform called AWS IoT.  This platform is currently in beta and is available to AWS subscribers.

Dr. Matt Wood, general manager, product strategy at AWS describes the AWS IoT platform as a way “to connect devices to the AWS cloud.  It also allows your company to collect, store, analyze and take action against the large volumes of data that is streaming from your connected devices.”  .. ' 

Bias and Innovation Solutions in Context

Colleague and master innovator from the enterprise Pete Foley, is now writing in Innovation Excellence.  See his most recent contribution: Why I Moved to Las Vegas and What it can tell us about innovation.   Also relates to bias in research.

" ... Once we have found an innovative solution to a problem, there is a danger that we are satisfied, the confirmation bias kicks in, and consequently we ‘turn off’ and move into execution mode. This good enough solution may be OK in an uncompetitive environment, but what happens if someone else keeps looking, and finds a much better idea? You don’t want to be the guy fine-tuning the latest refinement to a horse drawn carriage when somebody else is developing the motorcar.

Fighting natural human biases is always challenging, but in this case, there are many things we can do. For example, we can simply park ideas, and push teams to come up with multiple concepts. Or we can create internal competitions, and have different groups battle to come up with increasingly more breakthrough ideas. Or we can simply ask innovators to for their analogy to the aforementioned motor car, assuming they are in the horse drawn carriage business. Digging back into my background of consumer goods, that might be a detergentless washing machine. Or back to our automobile example, maybe the commercial driverless car. I’m by no means sure how far away that is, but it does question how much innovation effort you might want to put against innovating the driving experience in the mid to long term? ..... "

Read the whole thing, and follow Pete's writing,  See also his relevant blog.

Big Data Winning at the Casinos

In Forbes:  Still think there is real connection between the analytics of casinos and retail.  We explored.  Simulation in particular is a direct application.   We talked this to Harrah's.  See the casino tag link below.

" ... Caesars Entertainment, formerly known as Harrah’s – the company which runs the famous Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas and more than 50 other casinos worldwide – established itself as an early leader in Big Data customer service.

It has hit more than a spot of bother recently with a messy bankruptcy of its casino operating unit and reportedly facing fines of up to $20 million over money laundering allegations. The most valuable of the individual assets being fought over by creditors is the data collected over the last 17 years through the company’s Total Rewards loyalty program, which gained Caesar’s a reputation as a pioneer in Big Data-driven marketing and customer service. .. "

Data and the Internet of Things

In O'Reilly: Big Data and IoT.  Data and as we have been seeing, the architecture to support that data.  A four dimensional dilemma:

" ... The Internet of Things (IoT) has a data problem. Well, four data problems. Walking the halls of CES in Las Vegas last week, it’s abundantly clear that the IoT is hot. Everyone is claiming to be the world’s smartest something. But that sprawl of devices, lacking context, with fragmented user groups, is a huge challenge for the burgeoning industry.

What the IoT needs is data. Big data and the IoT are two sides of the same coin. The IoT collects data from myriad sensors; that data is classified, organized, and used to make automated decisions; and the IoT, in turn, acts on it. It’s precisely this ever-accelerating feedback loop that makes the coin as a whole so compelling.

Nowhere are the IoT’s data problems more obvious than with that darling of the connected tomorrow known as the wearable. Yet, few people seem to want to discuss these problems ... "

Internet of Things and Big Data

Is it all about data and leveraging analytics.  And an architecture to support them.

In OReilly: " ... The Internet of Things (IoT) has a data problem. Well, four data problems. Walking the halls of CES in Las Vegas last week, it’s abundantly clear that the IoT is hot. Everyone is claiming to be the world’s smartest something. But that sprawl of devices, lacking context, with fragmented user groups, is a huge challenge for the burgeoning industry.

What the IoT needs is data. Big data and the IoT are two sides of the same coin. The IoT collects data from myriad sensors; that data is classified, organized, and used to make automated decisions; and the IoT, in turn, acts on it. It’s precisely this ever-accelerating feedback loop that makes the coin as a whole so compelling. ... " 

Datawatch Wins Hackathon

I happened to be at a small portion of this Hackathon last week.  Was an interesting experience. In CNN: 

" ... Datawatch .... a leading global provider of visual data discovery solutions, was the winner of a recent Internet of Things (IoT) Hackathon at the IBM Insight 2014 Conference last week in Las Vegas.
The Hackathon was designed to foster new ways to develop cloud-based IoT solutions using Informix as the database repository for sensor data. IBM provided a store of real-time sensor data that could be used to create applications ranging from municipal water usage monitoring to truck fleet maintenance to analyzing the flow of people and traffic in retail stores.

The winner was chosen based on having the most compelling idea for solving a real-world problem, along with providing the most complete solution.

The winning Datawatch entry included an innovative visualization dashboard for monitoring electrical smart meters in homes so that energy companies could be more efficient and effective in the delivery of power. It combined both historical electricity usage data with real-time household data, visualized through interactive, real-time maps for tracking electricity usage by counties, regions and days of the week. Energy companies could use the visualization to foresee trends and spikes in energy demand, diverting power on the electric grid to areas in need or bringing online auxiliary power plants to meet impending demand.   ... ."

Walgreens Social and Mobile Analytics

Another example of a retail company using business intelligence with 'Big Data', seeking to get social and mobile understanding of customers.

 " ... "We are moving to a personal relationship with our customers, which in retail has never been seen before. We can take social and mobile analytics and really engage our customers through our mobile app," said Walgreens CIO Tim Theriault, addressing delegates at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco.

"We have rolled out a loyalty programme and that has given us new data insights about our customers that we can use to work with our suppliers and vendors. We can also use it show that we have an understanding of what the local stores should have - like lobsters at Boston, and pictures of Elvis at Vegas." .... ' 

Intelligent Light, Efficient Lighting and Sensors

Using light as a means of network construction has existed for some time.  It has interesting advantages and constraints.   We tested it for very specialized retail conditions.  From Radar OReilly:   A good overview of players in the space, which takes the idea beyond networking into energy efficiency:   " .... Consider the electric light: it’s ubiquitous and, well, boring. But meld it with some modern technology and you get intelligent lighting — wirelessly networked LED lights augmented by software and sensors. ... Early adopters have included creators of Las Vegas shows and productions, but in the big picture, entertainment is a mere sideshow. Intelligent lighting’s greatest impacts will be in the commercial and industrial sectors: warehouses, office buildings, factories, cold storage plants, hospitals — any place that encompasses large spaces and employs a lot of lights. ,,, That’s because smart lighting is highly efficient lighting. .... " 

Street Light System with Audio and Video Recording

In is natural to include security and pattern recording systems in lighting.  We tested the idea for retail.  Here a new integration: 

" ... Las Vegas Installs “Intellistreets” Light Fixtures Capable Of Recording ConversationsThe Las Vegas Public Works Department has begun testing a newly installed street light system around City Hall with wide-ranging capabilities including audio and video recording.

According to the Michigan based “Illuminating Concepts,” the system’s main benefits include “energy management, security and entertainment.” The Las Vegas setup includes such features as emergency notification flashers, playable music and a sound announcement system, all controlled from an Ipad ... " 

Legal Issues for Gamification

Legal issues for gamification.   " ... Ames Gatto Explains Gamblification  at  GSummit SF 2013 ...  What are some of the legal repercussions in dealing with real money, gambling, and gamification?

GM and Ford Asking for Apps

In Technology Review    The concept of an App takes another step forward:
 " ... GM and Ford Open Up Their Vehicles to App Developers
Some car apps will mirror mobile ones, while others will add new functionality, the auto giants say. ... Independent developers could find innovative new ways to use the computers in cars—but safety and security challenges remain. Ford and GM both used the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week to announce that they want software developers to create apps for their cars, and that they will open up their vehicles’ computer systems just as smartphone makers do with their devices .... " 

Enterprise and Consumer IT

Report on the crossover treatment between consumer and enterprise information technology, as presented in the CES conference.  IT will have to worry about the increasingly sophisticated use of devices and data in the consumer space.  Phones, tablets, laptops and the availability of big and leverage-able public data.    " ... With increasing crossover between business and consumer tech, CIOs should keep an eye on the new gadgets coming out  at the 2013 International CES, the annual consumer electronics gala that kicks off Tuesday in Las Vegas. But a trio of independent analysts don’t expect consumer device and application vendors to bend over backward for enterprise IT and CIOs.  ... " 

P&G Sports a Mobile Game

P&G's Downy plans a mobile scavenger hunt.  An example of brand oriented marketing gamificatition.

" ... Procter & Gamble fabric softener brand Downy will hold a smartphone-based scavenger hunt in Las Vegas next month to introduce a new product to a young, mobile audience. Downy Unstopables is a new line of scent beads that can be added to the wash to make clothes smell nice. On Dec. 3, smartphone owners in Las Vegas will be able to use their mobile devices to play the Downy Unstopables scavenger hunt for a chance to win a prize.    “With this promotion, Downy would like to dramatize the amplified sensorial experience that Unstopables delivers and leverage the city of Las Vegas because it is often seen as ‘the sensorial capital of the world,’” said Sherilena Strub, a spokeswoman at Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH. .... "   Sign up with Downy here.