Heath St. John Irving brings 43 years of international experience in the gaming and casino surveillance industry. As Vice President of Surveillance at Sands China Limited, Heath leads a team of 373 surveillance professionals, overseeing a system of 40,000 channels covering approximately 1,700 gaming tables and 3,500 slot machines.

Beginning his career in 1983 as a Croupier in the UK, Heath progressed through casino operations to Casino Manager before transitioning into surveillance and security in 1990. His international career spans the UK, Belgium, USA, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Romania and Macau, including senior leadership roles as Country Director of Operations in Turkey and Surveillance & Security Director in Romania. During his time in Romania, he also served six years on the Board of Administration and contributed to the IPO Steering Team.

in Macau for the past 16 years, Heath has progressed from Director to Executive Director and is currently Vice President of Surveillance. He is a Founding Member of the Romanian Casino Association (RCA), a Founding and current Committee Member of the International Association for Casino Security (IACS), and the current Vice Chairman of the Casino Surveillance Network (CSN) Asia. Heath is a Rescue Diver and Master Scuba Diver and is proficient in Krav Maga.

SESSION DESCRIPTION
Panel Discussion: What Will Game Protection Look Like in the AI Age?
A lot has changed in the last 20 years. The games are changing. Technology is changing. People’s mindsets are changing. From a game protection perspective “sleight of hand” has given way to “sleight of finger.” In this conversation game protection leaders talk about the biggest changes they have seen on the gaming floor in the last 20 years and discuss the current threat landscape, including the evolution of the advantage play team, electronic device threats and dealer-employee collusion trends. Are we prepared for the future? Are the biggest threats external or internal? What should we change, what should we keep the same? We ask the panel and audience two critical questions: What are the main threats to casino floor today and what do we need to do to modernize the game protection playbook to combat those threats?