Griffin Investigations

rdf:langString Griffin Investigations

rdf:langString Griffin Investigations was once the most prominent group of private investigators specializing in the gambling industry; roughly half of the major casinos in the US once subscribed to Griffin's services. The company was founded in 1967 by Beverly S. Griffin and Robert R. Griffin. The company maintained dossiers on card counters, serial jackpot winners, and other individuals, chiefly professional gamblers using legal techniques to gain an advantage in casino games; these profiles were regularly published in the Griffin Book and distributed to subscribing casinos. Griffin Investigations was instrumental in ending the MIT Blackjack Team’s winning streak, after a Griffin investigator purchased the names, photographs, and other details identifying the group's members, and the company distributed the information to casinos. Griffin also marketed a controversial facial recognition system that used computer software to compare gamblers' faces against several volumes of mug shots. Beverly S. Griffin, the firm's co-founder and co-owner, estimates as many as half of Southern Nevada's casinos now use biometric technology to identify the faces of card cheats or other undesirables. However, a Las Vegas casino surveillance director (writing under the pseudonym Cellini) reported in the book, The Card Counter's Guide to Casino Surveillance (2003), that biometric technology was considered virtually useless by actual casino surveillance operatives because of overwhelming numbers of false reads.