Star Tech Journal

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STAR*TECH Journal
April 1993
SECURING YOUR GAMES
&
PREVENTING BREAK-INS (PART
2)
Rich Holley
Southeast Game Brokers, Inc.
Tampa, Florida
SECURITY TIPS
Last installment (S *TJ
Feb93) we discussed the im-
portance of using good pad-
locks to secure our cash boxes
and the major elements to look
for when deciding on a lock.
We mentioned that a thief is
always going to look for the
easiest method by which to get
into a cash box, remove the
money and leave it looking like
nothing happened -so that he
can make many collections be-
fore anyone notices. Once he
has determined exactly what
he needs to get past whatever
type of security device is being
used by a particular company,
the hard part is over.
ADVERTISING
For those of you that put your
company's name instead of the
location's name on the identifi-
cation stickers required by
some states, you are making
the job easier for the thief if
your games have been broken
into at other locations. All he
has to do while casing a poten-
tial location is read the sticker
that we display on our ma-
chines and BINGO. If he was
unable to access your games
before, he will probably not try
again. However, ifhe was sue-
cessful, he's going to keep on
looking for your games be-
cause he has already invested
the time and knows exactly
what he needs to carry to get
into them.
Before I go any further, let me
re-state what I said in the first
part of this series in terms of
being careful when writing
about the problem of break-
ins, which we've all experi-
enced at one time or another.
You must be informed to a cer-
tain degree of how the money
disappears from your cash
boxes in what appears to be a
rather orderly and business-
like method. That is exactly
what it is -a business- and I
don't want to help anyone get
started, so I must try to stress
the ways to prevent break-ins
while saying only just enough
about how it is done in order to
present a clear picture.
SECURITY INvESTMENT
Once we have been convinced
that using a good padlock is
basic and essential, and I
might add a good investment,
then comes the question,
"What are your going to hang
it on?" Obviously, you need
some kind of hasp. These are
hundreds of different hasps
out there, most of which are
useless and a few that are very
good. In order to be sensible
about this, we should select a
good hasp that can be used on
more than one type or class of
machine. If you don't mind us-
ing several different hasps for
almost every occasion, you
stand a better than average
chance of protecting your ma-
chines. Most operators, how-
ever, don't like this method
because it is too customized
and, in many cases, when they
are finished with a particular
machine they also are finished
with the hasp because it can't
be attached to anything else.
I have tried many hasps dur-
ing my "growing up" period
and not only did I spend lots of
money needlessly, but I also
lost a lot of money because I
hung my beautiful expensive
padlocks on hasps that were
easy to defeat. Of course, my
hasp man was always there
ready to come to my rescue and
sell me yet a different kind of
hasp.
Securing games with huge
bars and massive hardware is
totally unacceptable to many
of the better locations, and
they will not tolerate equip-