Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | November 2011 20 can really impose on the manufacturer. That goes a long way in terms of notification—if there are software issues or anything of that nature, then unless a manufacturer is licensed by the jurisdiction there’s no relationship, there’s no requirement for the manufacturer to report that to the regulator. Is there any evidence that having local standards will make the approvals process more streamlined? By developing local standards, you enhance clarity on what is allowed and what is not allowed. That then gives manufacturers much more confidence in developing a product for that market. Without local standards you may have to work on probabilities. For example, you might develop a product that you believe has an 80% or 90% probability of going through because it has in the past. But there’s still a risk that it won’t. When a jurisdiction develops standards that are very specific, then manufacturers have the ability to understand with more confidence that such-and-such is specifically allowed, or such-and- such is specifically excluded. So they can develop a product knowing with the greatest sense of certainty that their regulator is not going to either reject it so it never gets approved, or worst case, have it on the floor and have maybe 100 or 200 machines operating, and then retrospectively say that they need to be removed because they violated some policy that wasn’t well-defined or that was open to loose interpretation. So, definitely, clarity is vital. What impact will having standards in Macau have on GLI’s business in that jurisdiction and in the region? That’s a great question, because we work in over 455 jurisdictions around the globe and some have adopted GLI-11 as verbatim, and other jurisdictions have additions to GLI-11 and some have very basic standards or very simple requirements. We always ensure that we meet specific jurisdictional requirements however they are written. At GLI we have a global database. Every single rule from around the world is put into that database. So if Macau or anybody else brings out a specific standard that’s not already included in a GLI Standard we can still test for it. Even if a jurisdiction has some special requirement, we find that in practice 80% to 90% of requirements are the same as a GLI Standard requirement. It’s really only about 10% of the material that is different. So we just make sure we hit that 10% on top of our existing testing. When jurisdictions do come up with additional requirements, we always work with them to help them understand the impact on the industry. We don’t take a view. We’re simply there to provide as much information as possible so they can see what practices are being used around the world and they can make a well-informed decision. Technical standards for gaming devices are a different thing from jurisdictional regulations for gaming devices. The latter are in effect laws that can be tested if necessary in court. Has there been any indication from the Macau side that they plan to introduce gaming regulations following the publication of technical standards? The DICJ has made public for at least two or three years that it will be developing standards for Macau. They haven’t indicated during that time when standards would come into place. I’m not aware of any time frames that they have in terms of when the standards will be developed or released. What’s the current development status of GLI’s Macau office and laboratory? We’ve had our office in Macau now for around three years. We have a large engineering team there. We have a compliance team there. We have really good people on the ground. I think having that local resource is beneficial for the local industry. We work very closely with the DICJ on many fronts and are delighted to do so. Ian Hughes, Managing Director – GLI Asia Advertise with Inside Asian Gaming For advertising enquiries, please email: ads@asgam.com or call +853 2832 9980