Setting the standards in gaming - Euroslot - the independent voice of the amusement and gambling industry

Setting the standards in gaming

Published: 28 September, 2011

The wonderful thing about standards,” a computing pioneer once quipped, “is that there are so many of them to choose from.” But not quite such a quantity, now, for many in the gaming industry. The Gaming Standards Association (GSA) has decided to restrict access to its standards, protocol updates and the like to members and regulators, giving those who belong to the association what it describes as “a clear R&D and operations advantage over competitors, by having access to the most versatile and powerful protocols that drive the devices and systems of tomorrow”.

Said president Peter DeRaedt: “The GSA has been lucky to have a core group of members who have shouldered a significant amount of the development expenses while the rest of the world reaped the benefits of their investment. Now, GSA members have more control over their future, because they are directly invested.”

The standards which will no longer be available to the world at large include the System to System (S2S), Game to System (G2S), Gaming Device (GDS) and transport documents. The only exception is GSA’s serial Game Authentication Terminal (GAT) standard, which will continue to be available for free to the industry.

However, a low-cost route to obtaining the others is also being made available through a new bronze GSA membership level, costing only $10,000 annually.

Of course, the GSA’s aren’t the only standards out there. Gaming Laboratories International (GLI) has updated its GLI-11 technical standard, Gaming Devices in Casinos, to version 2.1 after calling on thousands of individuals for comment. They included regulators, suppliers, operators and trade associations; several hundred replied.

“For GLI-11 to continue to be a true industry standard it was essential that we closely consulted with regulators, suppliers and operators to ensure that the document represented the most highly developed standards and practices within our industry,” said GLI director of technical compliance Patrick Moore.

The dozen-years-old standard is already used by some regulators as a guideline, and GLI was anxious to stress that systems already in existence will not suddenly become non-compliant. “Instead,” said GLI, “this version is intended to supplement a number of requirements which may have been too prescriptive.”

Meanwhile, GLI has become the first independent testing laboratory authorised by the Polish government. It has opened an office in Krakow, although testing for Poland – which began in July – has been performed by GLI Austria as well as GLI Europe. “The gaming marketplace throughout Eastern Europe continues to evolve, which is one of the reasons we chose to hold our Regulators Roundtable in Budapest earlier this summer,” said Phillip Barow, managing director of GLI Europe. Let’s hope that becomes, well, standard practice.

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