Inside Asian Gaming

GLI “G LI Verify is a tool that we are rolling out in a new version this month,” says Christie Eickelman. “It provides certification letters for whatever we’ve approved for any given jurisdiction. Each jurisdiction has its own user name and password. For example, in California there are approximately 68 Native American tribes that have gaming, and each regulator at each operation has his or her own username and password. They can see what’s been approved for their area and can verify what games are supposed to be on their floor. If something’s happened to a game in the field, that’s where the compliance department posts all of those notifications. So all their critical data is there. Also, users’ manuals for the tools we provide are there. There’s information if something’s been certified, or if it’s not been certified. If a product has an update or a version change, etc., all that data is right on the back end of the website, all over the world. And there’s no charge to suppliers and regulators for that.” Thanks to GLI Verify, regulators are able to interrogate any single machine that GLI have certified using a plug in tool that can be stored on a USB stick. “They click a button and it downloads a certification report,” explains Ian Hughes. “If I were a regulatory inspector in the field, and I didn’t know if a particular game was approved or not, I would simply remove the media and plug it into a GLI Verify tool. That will then interrogate the database, and it will tell me the name of the game, when it was approved, the date, and the signature—everything about the software. It will then ask if I want to download a letter. If I Select ‘yes,’ it will go to the GLI submissions database and download the actual PDF report. Now I’ve got the actual certification that GLI issued for that product. It’s something that regulators find immensely useful. “It means the regulators can interrogate and verify a machine for compliance in a short amount of time,” says Mr Hughes. “They don’t have to fill in a lot of paperwork, they don’t have to fill in lot of documentation. If they’ve got a query—for example, if the GLI Verify tool shows the product’s software is not approved, it will show straight away and the regulator can start talking to someone about it rather than waiting until he or she gets back to the office, looks it up on the regulator’s in house database, and then is required to come back to the casino floor. Before GLI Access and GLI Verify, a regulator would have needed to ask a casino for its slot floor log then spend hours and hours going through the database, researching what software a particular machine should have. It just eliminates all that effort.” “Suppliers canalso log into theGLI Access site and apply for transfers for products that have been tested in another jurisdiction, so they don’t have to go through the whole checklist once again,” adds Christie Eickelman. The ability to interrogate GLI’s database means suppliers and regulators can operate a ‘pull’ system where they actively seek out the information they want, rather than having to wade through the data provided by a‘push’system that sends out information to the industry on a blanket basis, regardless of its relevance to the individual regulator or supplier. “Before they used to get it all in the mail. They would get boxes full of letters,” says Christie Eickelman. “A letter would come in regarding a particular game certification in that jurisdiction. But the operators in that jurisdiction might not have bought that game and the regulators might not therefore have any need for oversight on the certification. Why do they need all that correspondence? Now they can go online and obtain the certification letters relevant to their market. GLI Verify A priceless industry tool regulators and manufacturers use to keep track of that whole process. It’s a bit like DHL tracking, where you send a package and it’s in transit in, say, Los Angeles and somebody has signed for it. We know exactly where the equipment is, and its progress at every stage.” Unique “We believe we are the only gaming lab in the world that offers interoperability testing and virtual interoperability testing on a global scope like this,” adds Christie Eickelman. Testing, Testing GLI explains the compliance process for a gaming device submitted to one of its laboratories this,” says Ian Hughes. “With today’s technology, a lot of those submissions are made electronically, but we still get some machines delivered here in Las Vegas. Our administrative staff will log them into a database, obtaining electronic signatures for the equipment. That goes into a bar folder on the database. Engineers will then pick that up. We have a job scheduling system to make sure nothing gets lost and to make sure we keep track of our turnaround times and notifications out to the manufacturer. “We also have several portals that the S ubmissions made to GLI for compliance testing of Class III gaming products— the slot machines with random number generators on board typically found in most land-based casinos—come to each of GLI’s labs, while the main testing lab for such devices is the company’s global headquarters in New Jersey. Arrival “Ninety percent of our submissions arrive into NJ, but we do accept submissions in each of our offices directly, so we have a small team here in Las Vegas to handle INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | January 2010 28