Bill Joseph, director of surveillance at the Westgate, poses on the casino floor Friday, Aug. 7, 2020.
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020 | 2 a.m.
From the moment someone steps foot on a Las Vegas resort property, they are being watched — from license-plate readers at garage entrances to hundreds of cameras trained on virtually every square inch of the casino floor.
Surveillance operators behind the ubiquitous “eye in the sky” are on a constant lookout for anything out of the ordinary to keep guests safe and root out theft, cheating and so-called “advantage players.”
But in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, they have taken on new duties: Making sure people are following safety protocols such as wearing face masks and even contact tracing.
At the Westgate, that means if an employee is exposed to the virus, surveillance crews sift through hours of video to identify their close contacts, resort officials said. The same procedure could be used for guests, though it has not to date, officials said.
“For team members who had flu-like symptoms or who had tested positive for COVID-19, we knew we needed to contact-trace them because they needed to be put on quarantine,” said Bill Joseph, director of surveillance for Westgate. “We want to reduce the risk and keep our employees safe and our guests safe.”
Once someone is identified on camera, it is relatively easy — though time-consuming — to track them through the property, Joseph said.
“What takes so much time is you can’t just fast-forward through the footage at the 8- or 16-times speed. You have to look at it in real time just to track whether people took down a mask or if they were within six feet of someone,” he said.
Almost everything a team member or guest does is also routinely tracked using an employee ID card or player loyalty card, Joseph said. “They’re signing in or signing out somewhere, so there’s a way to find out where people go,” he said.
Joseph did not say how many Westgate employees had tested positive for COVID-19 since the resort reopened after a state-ordered shutdown to help curb the spread of the virus.
Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered nonessential businesses closed in mid-March, and casinos were not allowed to start reopening until June 4 under strict social distancing guidelines. Employees and guests now must wear masks and there are limits on how many players can be at table games such as blackjack, poker and craps.
At the Westgate, surveillance operators are constantly scanning people to make sure the rules are followed.
“We called down to the sportsbook (Friday) because somebody didn’t have a mask on,” Joseph said. “You can’t eliminate the risk (of COVID-19), but you can mitigate it, and I think we’ve done that very well.”
Gordon Prouty, a Westgate spokesman, said that should guests become “a little bit feisty” about the rules, “we remind them that we just want to stay open. If they aren’t complying, we’re the ones who will pay for it.”
Resorts can face disciplinary action if they are found in violation of state-mandated guidelines.
Last week, gaming regulators cited the Sahara with violating social-distancing protocols. A Sahara spokeswoman said the company immediately corrected the situation.
Like the Westgate, other Las Vegas resorts are taking aggressive steps to protect the health of employees and guests.
The Venetian has 20 employees dedicated to contact tracing, a spokesman said. If a positive COVID-19 case is identified or suspected, a review of surveillance footage, where applicable, is conducted.
Many resorts have instituted measures such as routine testing of employees for the virus and requiring temperature checks for workers and guests.
Wynn Resorts, which has its own internal contact tracing program, is hoping to eventually be able to conduct pool testing on groups of up to 10 employees with a five-minute turnaround on results, CEO Matt Maddox said. Such testing is still awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval, he said.
Casinos must report all positive COVID-19 cases to the Southern Nevada Health District, but the district generally does not disclose the location of such cases, a spokeswoman said.
Wynn Las Vegas has identified about 300 positive coronavirus cases among its employees after conducting nearly 17,000 tests, Maddox said during an earnings call earlier this month. Contact tracers determined nearly all of those infected were exposed to the virus outside of the resort, he said.
The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has reported that since March 1, more than 300 members or their close relatives have been hospitalized with the virus. As of Monday, at least 32 have died, a union spokeswoman said.
The state Department of Health and Human Services also tracks how many visitors contract the disease while in Nevada or shortly after returning home. From June 1 through July 25, at least 347 visitors have tested positive, officials said.
