Las Vegas Slot Lab Tests for Rest of World

One of the cornerstones of the gaming industry is in the integrity of the games.

If that falls apart, the industry would stumble and people who spend billions of dollars in casinos worldwide could lose confidence in the industry’s ability to offer a fair deal.

It wouldn’t take long for casino companies to suffer the consequences.

That’s why Nevada prides itself in having a top-drawer regulatory system that jurisdictions worldwide have tried to emulate. The state Gaming Control Board has its own testing lab to monitor the integrity of slot machines, the biggest draw in most Nevada casinos.

Lab testing and machine compliance are key steps manufacturers must take before slots find their way to the market.

But what about the rest of the world? Where do other jurisdictions go for lab testing to ensure the integrity of their games, since Nevada has more than enough work to keep mathematicians, engineers and system technicians busy for games going to the state’s casinos?

For many manufacturers, all roads still lead to Las Vegas. In one of the hundreds of warehouse buildings south of McCarran International Airport is the local office of Gaming Laboratories International, the world’s oldest and largest gaming lab company.

While the company’s corporate headquarters is in Lakewood, N.J., much of the action remains in the center of the gaming universe. That’s one of the reasons why GLI, which opened a 5,000 square foot office in Las Vegas five years ago, has expanded into a 43,000 square foot building with 28,000 square feet dedicated to systems and interoperability testing.

James Maida, a former New Jersey gaming regulator who cofounded the privately held company in 1989, was in Las Vegas last week for an open house to show off the new operation to industry leaders.

“We’ll continue to grow,” said Maida. “With all the new types of systems coming on line, we know we’re going to expand.”

The Las Vegas site has room for growth and could eventually double the number of employees it has locally to 100. In Las Vegas, GLI plans to expand its special technology, device testing and field inspection groups.

But gaming isn’t just an American phenomenon. While many of GLI’s U.S. clients are Indian tribes and expanding state jurisdictions, the industry is maturing globally, which is why the company has labs and offices on five continents.

In addition to its Las Vegas and New Jersey operations, GLI has a location in Golden, Colo.; European outlets in Bologna, Italy, and Hillegom, The Netherlands; an Asian outlet in Macau, China; an African location in Pretoria, South Africa; and Australian operations in Sydney and Adelaide.

GLI has nearly 450 employees and about 250,000 square feet of testing facilities worldwide. The New Jersey headquarters is the largest, with 250 employees and 100,000 square feet of lab space and two shifts of engineers working daily.

Maida said 19 different languages are spoken at his company’s headquarters to assist regulators, manufacturers and casinos in all corners of the world.

With that global coverage, GLI can troubleshoot machine problems and even send teams to a casino for a first-hand inspection around the clock.

GLI has business relationships with more than 400 gaming regulatory bodies worldwide and the company handles more than 125,000 machine certifications a year.

Things are only going to get busier for the company with the arrival of serverbased games and wireless gaming applications technological advancements that Nevada regulators have said they must stay ahead of.

“A lot of the growth came with the arrival of TITO (ticket in, ticket out technology),” Maida said. “TITO is no longer just a slot machine system. It’s a funds-transfer system.”

Several casinos that use the popular cashless slot payout systems that deliver barcoded vouchers with payment amounts when a player cashes out now have systems that return cash for the vouchers. Some jurisdictions are looking at TITO systems that can draw directly from bank accounts and credit cards.

Critical to the testing process are working slot machines and casino operating systems that tie into the slots and the accounting and recordkeeping programs regulators require casinos to have.

GLI’s Las Vegas lab has virtually every type of slot machine and system on its floor and can electronically tie them together to run a variety of tests.

All the manufacturers are represented, with some parts of the floor dedicated to the products of various manufacturers IGT, Bally Technologies, Shuffle Master, Konami, Aristocrat and all the others in the gaming universe.

Engineers who generally specialize in specific computer protocols and software test machines by running them through diagnostic programs. They log results to determine that a machine is working properly. In separate tests, technicians log test runs to determine that the mathematical results match expectations.

With wireless technology becoming one of the brave new worlds of the gaming industry, GLI has developed parts of the lab dedicated to systems and machines that communicate with each other without electronic tethers.

Maida figures that new technological advancements alone will keep GLI and its seven major gaming lab competitors busy, even without jurisdictional expansions.

Technicians from the various companies have access to GLI’s lab floor sometimes a dicey proposition in the hypercompetitive gaming equipment manufacturing industry. But the company monitors access to prevent any corporate spying. Maida said there are a couple of occasions a year when a company’s technician wanders into an area where a rival’s device is being tested. Just a mention to company bosses usually prevents it from happening again, but Maida said some technicians have been banned for short periods for breaking the rules.

State Gaming Control Board lab technicians also have paid visit s to GLI. Maida said the relationship between Nevada and the private company is cordial.

Joe Bertolone, chief of the technology division for the Control Board, concurs.

“There’s no rivalry by any means,” Bertolone said. “They do a great job with what they do and it’s a noncompetitive situation.”

Bertolone said he doesn’t see a scenario in which GLI would take over the responsibilities of the state lab, owing to Nevada’s dedication to be the authoritative leaders of the industry. Nevada farmed out some lab testing to GLI a few years ago, but does most of its own testing.

Control Board leaders recently went to the Nevada Legislature to expand its staff and lab facilities. In June, the division received word that it would receive an additional $2.3 million a year to double the engineering staff and move the board’s lab out of the bottom floor of the Sawyer Building. The division is close to announcing the new lab location.

Like GLI’s growth, the state expansion is necessary to stay ahead of technological advancements.

Maida said GLI works with hundreds of regulators and plays host to round-table meetings in various locations worldwide. The biggest such meeting occurs annually in Las Vegas.

Regulators who participate get a first hand look at what GLI technicians are working on and what regulatory issues could be on the horizon for jurisdictions that approve new technology in the casinos they monitor. The company normally schedules the round table after the annual Global Gaming Expo convention in Las Vegas where manufacturers unveil some of the products they hope to introduce in coming year.

Once GLI has a feel for what the new hot products will be, they develop an agenda to help regulators. The next such gathering is Feb. 6-8 at the Tuscany.

“We really work for the regulators,” Maida said. “Our quality level is over 99 percent, so we feel we’re an important part of the process. But we have to stay neutral when working with the manufacturers.

“To them, we’re Switzerland.”

Richard N. Velotta covers tourism for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at [phone] or by e-mail at velotta@ lasvegassun.com.