NEWave’s Title 31 Software saves Riviera Hotel & Casino us$ 100,000 annually

Analyzing time spent on collecting data and compiling reports before using NEWave’s Title 31 software v. time spent on the same tasks with this software, the Riviera saved nearly us$ 100,000 annually.

The Riviera casino floor is comprised of 913 slots, 35 table games, seven self-redemption ticket kiosks and six cage windows. With the volume of casino patrons, the Riviera filed an average of 16.25 Currency Transaction Reports (CTR-C) and 0.25 Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR-C) monthly.

After installing NEWave’s Title 31 software, the average number of CTR-Cs increased to 19.5 per month, and the average number of SAR-C filings increased to 1.5 per month on average. However, the time it takes to collect the necessary data and to file the forms all decreased, while at the same time, the casino caught more transactions and achieved better compliance with the U.S. government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

“The biggest advantage we have experienced using NEWave’s Title 31 software is reduction in time with the audit,” Riviera Casino Controller Bill Hartwell said. “Now that everything is automated and most entries are automatically uploaded into Title 31, the actual audit is just a review. Besides less time in audit we have reduced the amount of time spent on the floor creating the log, with most transactions being auto-uploaded.  Last, the number of incomplete CTRs is down tremendously.”

The Riviera carefully analyzed all aspects of their Title 31 compliance efforts, including time spent by front line employees, auditors and supervisors on compliance-related tasks. The largest saving came in three key areas, namely:

Category: Time per day spent per dept creating information on file

·         Hours spent before Title 31 solution: 2.0

·         Hours spent after installing Title 31 solution: 0.25

·         Result: Cut 1.75 hours per day by 4 departments for a total of 7 hours per day at us$ 15 per hour

·         Savings: us$ 37,500 annually

Category: Time spent on daily audit of MTL

·         Hours spent before Title 31 solution: 4.50

·         Hours spent after installing Title 31 solution: 0.67

·         Result: Cut time spent by 3.9 hours every day at us$ 17 per hour

·         Savings: us$ 29,500 annually

Category: Time spent pulling forms in

·         Hours spent before Title 31 solution: 0.50

·         Hours spent after installing Title 31 solution: 0.08

·         Result: Cut time spent by 25 minutes per day for every audit at us$ 17 per hour

·         Savings: us$ 12,600

Other significant savings were found in time spent adding and aggregating smaller log entries, time spent on CTR-C filing and time spent on filing hard copies, saving us$ 3,000, us$ 2,800 and us$ 1,200 annually, respectively.

“It can be very easy to say, ‘What’s 15 minutes here or 10 minutes there?’ But what this report clearly shows is that small increments of time add up dramatically over time, costing, or in the Riviera’s case saving a casino over us$ 100,000 every year,” said NEWave COO Tom Bechtel. The savings are in addition to the security of knowing that the Riviera was in compliance with Title 31 guidelines required by the IRS.

“The U.S. government is absolutely serious about enforcing Title 31 compliance, because it has been found in numerous cases that criminals will try to use casinos to launder money, money which could then be used to fund a variety of heinous crimes,” said Bechtel. “The government believes strict compliance with Title 31 guidelines benefits society as a whole, because it stops crimes before they start.”