When poker season strikes Las Vegas, the city hosts the World Poker Championship as well

World Poker Championship '05 security vanguard

When poker season strikes in Las Vegas, the city hosts the World Poker Championship as well. While previous championships were held in vast estates of Harrah Company, summer 2005 will witness a new place – Rio Casino Hotel, which also belongs to this company. The championship began on June 2nd and will last till July 16th.

Poker has never been paid that much attention before, as it is now, especially after the World Poker Championship that used to be held once a year in Las Vegas turned into a peripatetic show of skill and excitement. According to the founders' estimations, the 36th Annual Championship is participated by thousands of players willing to bite a sweet lump off the 8-million-dollar prize. Apart from the striving gamblers, thousands of spectators are willing to see the show. It is not just the audience that wants to see the agony of the show. Tom Flynn, the video control service manager for Rio and Harrah hotels in Las Vegas, assures that the newest video control system will screen everything going both on the table and casino rooms.

The poker zone at Rio of 60,000 square feet has recently been restructured and refurbished for the championship and can now house 6,600 players at one time. Every player is ready to spend $10,000. Therefore, Flynn considered important to provide additional video control that would need a central monitoring station. The station was developed by North American Video Company specially for this event.

According to Mr. Flynn, the new poker championship will evoke a thick inflow of players, as the game became very popular around the world in recent times. North American Video kindly offered their equipment to serve the six-week tournament.

The control terminal supplied by North American Video for temporary use is fully set with high-quality equipment, including devices from Hobeywell, as well as a video-wall of 17-inch LCD displays made by NAV. Flynn mentioned that the system works great.

North American Video believes the terminal will be a temporary solution, as well as a demo version to their new project that they are going to launch after the 2005 championship is over. Apart from equipping Rio Hotel with monitoring system, the company started cooperation with Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas aimed at developing a modern systems for the fundamentally new casino.