The Tohono O’odham Nation is one of the largest tribes in Arizona, with more than 31,000 enrolled members. It owns and operates four Desert Diamond Casinos located in Glendale, Tucson, Sahuarita, and Why, Arizona. To stay competitive, the Nation continually seeks to improve their properties with new gaming and hospitality amenities. They also invest in the physical security infrastructure, including key control and key management from Morse Watchmans. Diamond Casinos needs to comply with a variety of State and tribal regulations pertaining to control and management of all the keys for their facilities. When the Nation learned about all the features and capabilities of the new Morse Watchmans KeyWatcher Touch, they decided to upgrade to new key control systems for all locations, replacing the existing earlier generation KeyWatcher systems. This investment allows the Nation to more quickly and easily comply with State and tribal regulations for management of facility keys.

Compliance and Convenience

Compliance requires the Nation to record all key activity transactions including time, date, and authorized user. The KeyWatcher Touch system automatically records all these transactions and provides a “notes” feature for users to indicate why unscheduled drops may have occurred. Usage reports can also be generated as needed. To meet gaming regulations that require a three-man rule to access sensitive or restricted key sets, the KeyWatcher Touch is programmable to recognize the keys or key sets and open the cabinet door and release them only when the three required logins are complete and the credentials verified.

For added convenience, the KeyWatcher Touch system is configured to use the same employee proximity ID badge that is used with the Casino’s access control system. The KeyWatcher Touch cabinet will not open until the system verifies that the user has permission for the specific key or group requested. A time restriction feature helps management keep tighter control on sensitive keys because it can be set to notify security when a key is overdue.

New Features with Enhanced Operation

The KeyWatcher Touch upgrade allows Desert Diamond Casino management to have centralized control of the entire key control system. To simplify user key access, enrolling information, and updates, the KeyWatcher Touch allows synchronization of the same information across all key control cabinets. Profiles can be created and assigned to each user and any changes to the profile cascade down to the users assigned to it. The move to a common user database ensures system integrity and even allows auditing transactions and history after an employee’s departure.

Because the system is integrated with the casinos’ business and communications network, email and SMS texts can be sent automatically to authorized individuals. Locating keys or determining when a key is scheduled to be returned is faster and easier with the new features of the KeyWatcher Touch.

Other innovative features of the KeyWatcher Touch ideal for casino applications include the time-savings KeyAnywhere capability that allows the return of a key to any KeyWatcher Touch system within the enterprise, and the KeyFind feature that enables users to quickly locate which KeyWatcher Touch a specific key is in or determine who has it out.