The Nevada Gaming Control Board recently hosted a public workshop about how to streamline the approval process to bring new products to the state’s casinos.
The session was held in response to Governor Joe Lombardo’s comments during his State of the State address, in which he said “concerns have surfaced” about the board’s testing lab and approval steps.
Gaming Hall of Famer John Acres, chief executive officer at Acres Technology, said the state’s system, which requires new gaming products to be field tested on casino floors, can take six months to two years to complete.
He said, “All new products have flaws and many are revealed during a field trial. Before a product can be modified to fix a flaw, the modification itself must be certified by the control board. Each modification takes four weeks to 12 weeks to accomplish.”
Former Governor Bob List, an Acres board member, added Nevada is “no longer the gold standard when it comes to innovation.” He said Nevada should look at other state gaming regulatory agencies’ approval processes for ideas.
“Other states have learned from us about licensing and investigative techniques and our standards for suitability. We can now learn from them on innovation because we have fallen behind,” List warned.
Daron Dorsey, executive director of the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers, agreed Nevada has not kept up with more advanced product-approval approaches used by other states’ gaming regulators, such as using independent testing labs.
He said, “Those jurisdictions adopted a product approval methodology that recognizes gaming technologies and the national and global marketplace.”
He added certain states compete with Nevada for customers because they are “preferred venues” for introducing new gaming products. “We can and should adopt a more collaborative approach to avoid further delays or deterioration of Nevada’s place in the U.S. when it comes to gaming technology,” Dorsey said.
Jim Barbee, chief of the Nevada board’s technology division, which oversees the testing lab, said Lombardo is correct; the state’s rigid gaming regulations derive from the past when gaming regulators were concerned about crime in the casino industry.
Barbee said, “I think a lot of the requirements that we have today are still reflected on history. Do we still need all of the detailed reporting in the various requirements that we have based on the environment that we’re operating in today, and not necessarily based on the environment as it was in 1970 or 1980?”
Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Kirk Hendrick said the workshop was the first step in responding to the governor’s concerns. He said as a result of the workshop, the board’s staff had several action items to pursue. “A lot of them, in my mind, are going to require further conversation. I was happy that everybody showed up in the right spirit,” Hendrick said.
