The July issue of Current Blackjack News mentioned that Borgata (in Atlantic City) appears to take photos of license plates as customers enter the casino's parking garage or surface lot. The newsletter went on to say that since a credit card must be used for payment that Borgata will have the information to identify unwanted patrons by their license plate numbers.
My experience with Borgata is as follows:
1. A ticket (parking stub) was not issued to me when I entered the parking garage
2. When leaving the garage I used a mandatory kiosk, and the only interaction was to enter a credit card; yet the kiosk automatically computed the amount that I owed
3. My receipt had my arrival and departure times (which were accurate)
The kiosk system is new and my concern is that it will be adopted by other casinos. Also, it is not possible to avoid using a credit card since cash is not accepted. There is an employee to deal with problems, although the employee will not accept cash. I can only surmise that if a person doesn't have a credit card that they are given a voucher to mail the payment to Borgata. All I can say for sure is that there were plenty of signs stating that cash is not accepted.
The photos are taken without the customer's knowledge since no signs are posted. I know that the technology exists to read a car's license plate because Philadelphia has a problem with unpaid parking tickets and expired registrations. The city has a camera mounted on a special police car and when the police car drives down the street the camera reads the license plates of parked cars and then immediately compares the license plate to a data base of unpaid parking tickets and expired registrations. The car may then be towed or booted for unpaid parking tickets or ticketed for an expired registration.
I have no reason to believe that Borgata has implemented any policies to identify card counters by the license plate numbers of their vehicles, but the information is now available to them. Borgata has enough information to notify the pit of the customer's presence before the customer even parks the car. Unfortunately, their parking garage / lot must be used since there is absolutely no street parking in the area.
The only way I can see to deny Borgata this information is to use someone else's credit card or perhaps valet parking. Without a premium player's card the valet parking charges are high, perhaps $25 per day and during special events valet parking can only be used by customers with premium player's cards. Also, the license plate might still be photographed when the valet attendant parks the customer's car in the valet parking lot.
