It was quite an extended Beta test of the chips and special table, Alex. Lasted a lot longer than I thought it would as I found the player experience unsatisfactory. For instance, the light that said you 'Busted' came on as soon as the bust card left the shoe... before either you or the dealer saw what it was... no suspense at all .

My understanding was it was supposed to be faster and eliminate dealer payoff errors (or cheating?). It did pretty much work and the table did seem to catch the right total for the chips placed in the betting squares. There were problems whenever there was something out of the ordinary, like dealer anticipates a hit, and starts to deal and the player waves it off. The shoe had already sensed the card and added it to the player total.

I also saw the controller lock up several times. There was almost always a Mikohn technican in the dedicated pit for the games to 'fix things'. I believe there were 5 or 6 tables running the system in a single pit.

There was certainly the ability of the system to track a player's betting and playing strategy. They said the purpose was not to catch counters, but most counters didn't believe that and avoided the games.

They had both special chips and regular table chips in the rack. You bought in and played with the Safejack chips. When you colored up, you were supposed to get regular chips to walk with. They watched the Safejack chips fairly closely but didn't do a table count when a player left, so you could pocket them. I don't think many $100's left with collectors, and I haven't seen any chips higher than that.

I'd say the experiment failed.