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Guiding LightBy Frank Legato (https://ggbmagazine.com/author/legato_frank/)Fri, Jul 24, 2020

GLI doubles down on helping clients get through and recover from thepandemic

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For 31 years, if you’ve wanted to take the pulseon the nature of the games being offered bycasinos at any given moment, you could go toJames Maida.

Along with Pau Magno, Maida founded GamingLaboratories International in 1989 as analternative to state-run testing labs that oftenbecame backlogged with new products as slotmachines evolved and multiplied. As new casino

markets opened in the Midwest and various Native American markets, slotgames that formerly would have launched in Nevada or New Jersey begandebuting in a growing array of states recognizing GLI certification.

As such, new products and emerging technology have invariably passedthrough GLI’s labs for certification. In the early years, this primarily involvedgames and systems for casinos, lotteries and charitable gaming. As theindustry grew, GLI developed expertise in online gaming, geolocation,cashless payment systems, responsible gaming systems and networksecurity.

GLI’s engineers have been among the first to see a parade of newtechnology that has poured into casinos. The company has partnered withregulators, manufacturers and operators on all manner of technologydesigned to move the industry ahead.

Of course, none of that history could have led to anyone foreseeing 2020. ButGLI’s years of investment in technology allowed it to quickly adapt to dealwith the current crisis.

As the industry faced an unprecedented shutdown due to the Covid-19pandemic, Maida’s team kept GLI working at full speed, shifting focus tohelping clients survive, and to deploy technology that would ultimately helpoperators to reopen and operate safely.

Meanwhile, the equipment testing that is at the core of GLI’s mandate hascontinued. “We saw things coming in March, and we quickly figured out howto use technology that allowed us to continue serving our clients during thecrisis,” says Maida, who is GLI’s president and CEO. “When the pandemicwas taking shape, we immediately contacted our regulators and learned toaccess gaming equipment in a way that kept our employees and clients safe,while continuing to fulfill the needs of regulators and the industry.

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“Our previous investments in remote work technology were essential to ourability to provide seamless service to our stakeholders.”

Remote testing, of course, is nothing new for GLI. “Over the last four or fiveyears, we’ve developed a robust system where we can remote-control all ofthe slot machine games that are being testing in the lab from outside the lab,”Maida says. “So, our employees were able to work from home and testgames that were in the lab.”

The same went for other GLI departments. “Over a three-day period, our IT,HR, accounting and legal teams quickly transitioned to remote work,” Maidasays. “We have hundreds of employees now on remote connections. Ourservers are just as fast as if they were in the office. We also recognize that nooffice can run without people. Thus, we worked within the CDC guidelines toensure that a small group of essential employees could work in our officessafely. Throughout this crisis, the health and safety of our employees hasbeen the top priority.

“We’re here to help the suppliers get through this. And whether they’resupplying a lot or a little, we’re going to have people on the ground ready totake their work and get it done.”

While slot game volume may have dipped while suppliers were forced tofurlough R&D staff, there has been plenty of other work that has filled thegap. One of these areas, of course, is U.S. online gaming.

“Throughout Europe and Asia, we do lots of online gaming (testing),” Maidasays. “We’ve had a lot here in the United States, and the amount of onlinework is increasing.

“I think that as time goes on, you’re going to see regulators and stategovernments and policymakers start switching to more of a digitalenvironment. We are seeing a realization that there are times whenconsumers need access to remote entertainment. In addition, gamingrevenues fund important state and tribal programs, and online gaming can atleast keep casinos alive, and lotteries stable during times of crisis. It helpsthese companies to continue serving their customers, making money, andretaining employees.”

GLI’s Colorado office hosts the growing online gaming division in the U.S.and complements its huge iGaming testing division in Europe. “We test allthese products not only on iPhone, but Android and all of the other differentplatforms,” says Maida. “As new devices come out, we have to test them. Asnew systems come out, we have to test them against all known devices.”

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“Mobile device gaming has just exploded,” says Ian Hughes, GLI’s chiefcommercial officer. “We believe, with the advent of 5G, that will just continueto grow, because the separation between what you’re able to do at home ona broadband connection, in terms of viewing the sports on your mobiledevices, that gap has become smaller and smaller. We see mobile gamingcontinue to grow.”

The mobile applications have become more important as sports betting hasgeared up. GLI works with most of the sportsbooks in the U.S., testingplatforms and technology, in addition to well-established operations aroundthe world.

Expanding ExpertiseFor GLI, the Covid-19 pandemic has expanded more than testing in onlineand mobile applications. The crisis has spawned a wealth of newtechnologies designed to allow casinos to reopen and operate safely amidthe ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

“There have been a lot of system improvements,” Maida says. “People arethinking about problems such as when a player ends a session on a game,how the system will be able to alert staff to come and clean the game.

“The other thing we’ve seen a lot is payment processing, and new ways ofputting money on the games. We’re seeing a lot of submissions aroundcontact-less, touchless ways of moving money onto the game and movingmoney off the game.”

In this case, he adds, the pandemic is speeding up the industry’s adoption ofpayment methods that are routine in the retail world, where there is a growingreluctance to handle cash. “I think I’ve had the same $20 or $40 in my walletfor the last two months,” he says, “because now I charge $5.50 on a creditcard, which I never used to do. I think we’re seeing a lot of changes in moneymanagement. We’re working closely with regulators to move this technologythrough the lab and into the field. It is not just a response to the pandemic,but also fulfills consumer demand and improves protections against moneylaundering.”

Health-conscious technology is not all that’s new on GLI’s testing menu. Thecoronavirus crisis is contributing to the rise of a style of game that has beenviewed as illegal in the past—the so-called “skill games” that are proliferatingin non-casino locations in several states. In the latest development of that

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ongoing story, lawmakers in Wyoming and Virginia have, at least temporarily,moved to legalize and regulate games of skill, along the same lines as videogaming terminals prevalent in states like Illinois and Montana.

“These skill games are a new type of gaming the states are looking for, toallow them to again make money and make revenue for the state,” saysMaida. “And I expect to see more of this. New types of gaming are coming,new kinds of ideas are coming, and we’re always here to help people.”

Wyoming and Virginia are regulating skill games to fill the revenue hole left byCovid-19 business shutdowns. According to Maida, GLI tests the skill gameswith the same dedication to ensuring integrity that is used for casino games.“We work very closely with Wyoming and Virginia,” he says. “The states willgive us the rules and regulations they want to use, so each state will bedifferent.

“With respect to how you figure out a payout percentage, we can calculatethe best player never making a mistake—that will come out as a percentage—we can come up with an average player, and what that percentage wouldlook like, and we can come up with an unskilled player, and what thatpercentage would be. Then it’s up to the state to tell us what percentage touse—should it be an average-skilled player? Should it be a poorly skilled orhighly skilled player?”

Maida is careful to draw a distinction between state-authorized skill games instates like Wyoming and Virginia and the unregulated games still proliferatingin a variety of retail locations in Pennsylvania and other states. In fact, GLIVice President of Government Relations Kevin Mullally contributed a whitepaper on unregulated gambling to the efforts of the Association of GamingEquipment Manufacturers and the American Gaming Association to fightagainst unregulated machines.

“AGA and AGEM are taking a tough approach that gambling machines shouldnot be used in a state jurisdiction where they’re not legal. Our white paperexplains the scope of that problem and the related policy implications,” Maidasays. “In Pennsylvania, those games are not regulated by the PennsylvaniaGaming Control Board. We would see that as illegal gaming. We see that asa very clear line. We work for regulators; we don’t test games that go intoillegal markets.”

Adapting to Change

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Adjusting to the new challenges created by the global pandemic is secondnature to GLI, which has spent 31 years adapting to an industry that isconstantly evolving with new technology. “As the industry has grown morecomplex, we have developed staff to serve its needs. During each industryevolution, GLI has ensured that we have the staffing, expertise andtechnology to quickly, efficiently and accurately move technology through thelab and into the field. That will never change,” Maida says.

“The work has become more challenging, the technology is moremultifaceted, and the games are much more complex than in the past. Themediums have really changed. Before, it was plug a slot machine in, it hadthree reels; it was pretty simple. And now we have all of these different typesof games, and iGaming, and sportsbooks and sports betting.

“But the quality of how we approach it today continues to increase. Last year,we had a revocation rate of less than one half of 1 percent. I don’t thinkanybody else is close to matching those numbers.”

“Technology is always evolving,” adds Hughes. “Manufacturers are deployingand developing new technology all the time. And so, it’s important that westay ahead of those (developments). Regulators recognized fairly early onthat it was financially better for them to use an independent, private lab thatcould invest in the technology and the resources to understand thattechnology. And so, we continue to serve that around the world.”

The fact that technology is changing so rapidly in the gaming industry meansthat GLI’s professionals have a unique view of what’s ahead in the industry.“We now have over 60 people in our technical compliance division,” saysMaida. “They travel the world, they meet with clients, and they’re the first lineto say, hey, this is what is new, and work with clients and regulators on waysto efficiently test it with great quality. We monitor all the new technology.

“All of our clients globally give us a one-to-two-year roadmap of all their newproducts coming. This allows us to know things a year ahead of when youmight see them at a show. We can then go brief regulators on what’s coming.That’s a very large portion of our work.”

That technological foresight extends to all corners of the industry, as GLIcontinues to work not just with suppliers but with operators, to test iGaming orsports betting operations, or, through the company’s Bulletproof division, toassist casinos in the cybersecurity area. “We’re engaging with operators moreand more every year, almost as much as we engage with suppliers today,”says Maida.

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“We help the operators in a couple of ways,” adds Hughes. “First of all,indirectly, when we do work for suppliers that are putting product onto theoperator’s floor, it’s our job to make sure that it works correctly, it integrateswith systems correctly, and it works seamlessly when it hits the floor. Andthen of course, directly, on the side of security. We understand gamingsystems better than anyone else, especially when it comes to cybersecurity.”

“Our cybersecurity division, Bulletproof, was in business 20 years before weacquired them five years ago,” says Maida. “That division is growing rapidly.Through this coronavirus situation, there’s been more fraud on the internetthan ever before. That part of our business is growing 30 percent or 40percent per year.”

Bulletproof’s work also extends to lotteries around the world, as well asoutside of the gaming realm entirely. “Almost 60 percent of (Bulletproof’s)work is non-gaming,” Maida says. “We work with people who operate dams,and electrical companies and large oil companies. Those people are alsoconcerned about cybersecurity.”

Rebooting the IndustryAs several states experience fits and starts in the process of reopening thecasino industry, GLI is helping wherever the company is needed. “We aremoving at (our clients’) pace,” Maida says. “Some casinos have opened tolarge crowds because of the pent-up demand, and now, several weeks later,we’re starting to see what that demand is.

“We’re taking care of clients first, with personalized customer service. We’redoing field testing where we’re asked to. We’ve also done some geolocationtesting for clients. And we’re continuing to work at not only the regulators’pace, but the operators’ pace. When they need to reopen and they need ourservices, we’re going to be there.”

Meanwhile, GLI continues its efforts to provide education and peer reviewopportunities in the regulatory community amid the rapid changes in theindustry. The GLI University training program continues with a host of virtualevents, such as a major webinar series. The next major North AmericaRegulators Roundtable is slated for March 2021, but the virtual events arecovering more immediate issues in the meantime.

“One of the things we’re seeing is a shift away from table games and ontomulti-station electronic table games, where there’s no dealer,” Maida says. “Alot of that content has been featured in the webinars, whether it’s in Latin

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America or North America or Europe. It’s interesting, because we’re a globalcompany, and in all of our offices around the world, we’re in a different phaseof the coronavirus.”

The agility of GLI’s staff in adapting to the post-Covid world will be paramountover the following year. “As we come out of this, most CEOs are thinking oftwo things: One, we’re very hopeful that we come out—we’re hopeful for thisfall and we’re hopeful for next year. We’re hopeful for a vaccine, and we’rehopeful for an anti-viral drug that will help.

“But I think you also must plan for what would go wrong if there was a secondwave, and we had to shut down a second time. So, I don’t spend a lot of mytime thinking about what’s coming in on a daily basis, because we have ahuge team that handles all the requests. I’m trying to think about the effect onour employees and our teams and our company if, God forbid, we have asecond shutdown, or certain casinos open and then are forced to close andreopen again. I’m spending most of my time planning for all the contingenciesgoing forward, because we want to make sure GLI is sustainable for the longterm.

“We’ve been doing this for a lot of years, and we’ve seen a lot of crises—financial crises, we’ve lived through two or three of those; we’ve been through9/11, where people couldn’t get on a plane. But we’ve never seen a crisiswhere all the casinos in the world were shut down simultaneously, on thesame day. No one would have thought that could have happened. So, I wouldsay this is our biggest challenge yet, but we continue to look forward and tryto be hopeful, but be on guard for what might happen in the future—and planfor both scenarios at the same time.”

Whatever the near future holds, Maida has built a corporate culture for GLIthat will carry the company through. “We value our team members, and wewant to make sure we have a world-class employee experience,” he says.“Not only do we go for a world-class customer experience, but we want tomake sure our employees are not only well taken care of, but they’re welltrained, and that we provide each employee with a path to greatness.”

That means GLI employees often move to other parts of the industry, whichMaida says actually is a testament to that corporate culture. “As I travelaround the world, how many suppliers have former GLI employees workingfor them now? I think that’s a good testament, hopefully, to what we startedwith each of them. I’m glad our employees have a chance to reach for thestars, and we want each one of them to do that, because we know that we’redeveloping tomorrow’s leaders.”

/

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