New Casino Design

[VENgineer]

Hello, good afternoon, and thank you all in advance.

I have the following situation:

We are designing a casino for a client within the existing facilities of their hotel.

Casino anticipated laods:

• Anticipated approximately 400 machines in space, potentially 720 machines property-wide.
• Overall electrical needs would be 500KW/480V (approximately 3,000 – 4,000 AMPs) property-wide.
  • Estimated 3AMP per machine.
  • 300 cameras, surveillance system must be independent of the hotel system with a separate surveillance room.

My first question is as follows.

Do I need two generators, one for the emergency system (required by NEC), and another for "optional" systems (critical for the casino's operation).

The hotel's engineering team says that the existing hotel generators can be used (if the load allows), one for emergency and the other for optional.

My question is whether, because it's a casino, I would need generators independent of those already existing for the hotel, and which code determines this. I have searched the NEC, and it only indicates generators according to the type of load to be supplied (Article 702).

If you have any opinions or suggestions on where I could look, I would appreciate it.

The project is in Miami, Florida. I'm trying to find the regulation that governs gaming and casinos in Florida to see if there are any specific requirements for installations, but I haven't been able to find it yet.

Thank you again!

 

[hmspe]

This would be a building code issue, not an electrical code issue. It has been a while since I did casino work (southwest US) but we did not use a generator at all.

 

[Johnhall30]

You can put Article 700, 701, and 702 loads on the same generator, provided they are on separate transfer switches with the ability to shed the load of the less critical branches if needed. The would have to determine if the generator is equipped with the capability to control multiple emergency branches.

If your generator can handle the additional load, and you design the distribution system as required per 700, 701, and 702 I dont see a reason why you would have to have the casino on a separate generator.

 

[zbang]

As mentioned in the dup thread, the state gaming commission may have some directives and also the machine manufacturer (do they need conditioned power? UPS power? etc).

Considering this as a high-availability IT load, I would expect that redundant UPS would be desirable (if not required), and that will also drive the generator connections.