Restrictions to be lifted on Slot Machine certification

Well,
The State of Nevada is now going to be outsourcing some of the slot machine certifications to non-gov't companies....Independent companies may now bid to audit machines.
Would like to hear from the mathematicians on this....

See:
http://www.lvrj.com/business/restrictions-to-be-lifted-on-gaming-machine-certification-124839914.html

Outsourcing regulation to private for-profit corporations, what could possibly go wrong?

Actually, Nevada is one of the few states that still does it's own certifications. In fact, when a game is sent to Nevada for certification, it is often sent to 3rd party laboratories, such as GLI or BMM, to garner approval for another 30 jurisdictions. Really, this will just reduce the cost for slot manufacturers, since they won't be paying NV.

Personally, I think that GLI offers a more in depth certification than Nevada. Nevada won't test your machine to the same rigor, but they will fine your a** off when things go wrong in the field.

Quote: s2dbaker

Outsourcing regulation to private for-profit corporations, what could possibly go wrong?

are you instead saying, "The government is your friend?...."

Quote: CrystalMath

Actually, Nevada is one of the few states that still does it's own certifications. In fact, when a game is sent to Nevada for certification, it is often sent to 3rd party laboratories, such as GLI or BMM, to garner approval for another 30 jurisdictions. Really, this will just reduce the cost for slot manufacturers, since they won't be paying NV.

Personally, I think that GLI offers a more in depth certification than Nevada. Nevada won't test your machine to the same rigor, but they will fine your a** off when things go wrong in the field.

Crystal, do you think there should be a centralized gaming approval process for the U.S.?
If a game isn't gaffed and is certified in New Jersey, then by the same process it should be clean in Nevada, if it were properly examined.

I don't see why not.

If GLI or BMM checks it out and certifies it for one jurisdiction, why can't they rubber-stamp it for the rest / nationwide?

They essentially do this right now. Most jurisdictions in the US use a very common set of rules, usually based on LV rules, such that a game can be certified once, then the certification can be transferred to other jurisdictions. The most common differences are the top award odds and return percentages permissable.

Quote: Paigowdan

Crystal, do you think there should be a centralized gaming approval process for the U.S.?
If a game isn't gaffed and is certified in New Jersey, then by the same process it should be clean in Nevada, if it were properly examined.

For game manufacturers, this would be great. One testing bill. This won't work, of course, for a handful of funny jurisdictions, such as Washington, where you don't have real slot machines.

Quote: Paigowdan

Crystal, do you think there should be a centralized gaming approval process for the U.S.?
If a game isn't gaffed and is certified in New Jersey, then by the same process it should be clean in Nevada, if it were properly examined.

No way. Gaming regulation is and should be a states' rights issue. If a given state wants to respect a regulatory ruling from another, that's one thing. That already happens in some cases: Oregon will respect an NGCB table game approval for tribal casinos. But *forcing* them to, that's a bad idea. Many regulations, in fact, are written hand-in-hand with tax statutes and other policy decisions, decisions which are based on local facts. Many of the games in Nevada, including all of the +EV ones, are simply not legal in New Jersey right now due to RTP issues. Issues like number of machines per venue, machine pay schedule restrictions, randomness requirements, etc. -- those can't be normalized right now without massive costs. And whose regulations win? If Oregon only allows $600 maximum machine payout, do you restrict Nevada games to $600 jackpots? That'd kill Megabucks and IGT would never take that lying down. If New York requires central determination and electronic pull-tabs where VP game results are predetermined, do you change all VP games to work that way? No, I can't see a central regulatory agency ever being a prudent choice.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I don't see why not.

If GLI or BMM checks it out and certifies it for one jurisdiction, why can't they rubber-stamp it for the rest / nationwide?

Testing a machine is the easy part. Certifying that it complies with all the local regulations is the hard part. I've spoken to GLI directly on this issue for one of my games -- they will do a regulatory letter for one specific jurisdiction but not a blanket letter that applies everywhere. In other words, you don't get "GLI approval", you get GLI certification that your game complies with regulations for a given jurisdiction.

When I was in California yesterday, I stopped at 2 separate fast food locations, both of which had, prominently displayed on their front door, their most recent evaluation by, what I'm assuming is, the board of health, or other such similar institution. Fortunately, both of the places I ate had an A rating. But seeing this rating was new to me, as here in Arizona, the restaurants do not do that. I don't know if there is a requirement for the restaurants in California to display their health rating or not, but it was interesting to see.

I didn't look in California or Nevada, but I know here in Arizona, there is a sticker on the gas pumps that indicates the gas pump was calibrated and checked by the Arizona Dept of Weights and Measures. Or something. Granted, I never looked at it all that closely. But that sticker is obviously there to induce some sort of confidence in the usage of that gas pump. Must like the display of the restaurant's health rating may induce confidence that the restaurant is a clean one.

Why not have similar such stickers on the slot machines. "This machine has been independently authenticated for accuracy with a guaranteed payout equal to or greater than the state minimum."