GGRAsia – BMM prepped for Macau EGM regulation update: White

BMM prepped for Macau EGM regulation update: White

Jan 04, 2018 Newsdesk Interviews, Latest News

BMM Testlabs “ticks all the boxes” with regard to its ability to work within updated electronic gaming machine (EGM) regulations planned for the Macau market. So explained Kirk White (pictured), executive vice president and general manager, international, for the gaming testing laboratory and technical consultancy, in comments to GGRAsia.

BMM Testlabs is the branding for BMM International LLC. Mr White’s responsibilities for the group include the BMM Macau and BMM Singapore testing businesses, as well as BMM Korea – a South Korean laboratory in partnership with a third party – and BMM Australia, via facilities in Melbourne, Victoria and in Sydney, New South Wales. In late November, BMM announced it had been been licensed by the Philippine gambling regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor), to certify online gaming products in that country.

Paulo Martins Chan, director of Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau – also known by its Portuguese-language acronym DICJ – gave news in November of a planned update to Macau’s electronic gaming machine regulations. He said the body would introduce in 2018 amendments to Administrative Regulation No. 26/2012 on the “Regime for the Supply and Requisitioning of Gaming Machines, Equipment and Systems”.

BMM’s Mr White told GGRAsia in comments made after that official announcement: “It will have no [material] impact on us. We are a Macau-based company, we have a lab here, we are licensed here, so we tick all the boxes.”

He added: “What we have to do is go through a relicensing process. But that is okay. We do that everywhere. And they [the gaming bureau] have requested that our staff members who go on site to casinos carry an ID [identity] card. We just need to produce the ID cards for our staff.”

GGRAsia understands from casino equipment suppliers that under the proposed updated regulations, their technicians will also have to carry such identity cards when working on Macau casino floors.

In his comments, BMM’s Mr White also gave an overview of the group’s work in Asia-Pacific markets.

“The key things to stress are our services and our industry support. That covers compliance testing and consulting services; pre-compliance and quality assurance testing, RNG [random number generator] and online product testing – everything from a land-based and online product perspective we test and certify in the regulated markets,” he told GGRAsia.

Pre-compliance services

Mr White added: “Some clients want the quality assurance service before they get to the compliance stage, because it helps them. If you [the client] are in an early development cycle on a product, you can use our services to test while development is proceeding, speeding up the development process and increasing the product’s quality.”

He explained: ‘That is a bit different from a compliance process, where you have gated processes where you submit something and wait for it to be tested…”

BMM also offers consultancy services to casino technology suppliers, helping them understand the regulatory environment in respective markets in Asia Pacific.

“We are an independent organisation that has been around for 30-plus years, and because we are independent, we are a good source of information. We know technology, we know the product, we know the general gaming industry and what is going on globally,” stated Mr White.

He further noted: “Because many of the regulated gaming markets in the region are quite new and complex, we provide consulting services to customers, going through with them what compliance means, and what the interpretation of standards [of the relevant jurisdiction are] so that people are well informed about what they are doing in their research and development, to become technically compliant for the market.”

BMM also offers training services to casino operators about products it is working on for approvals processes.

“We cover general education on the same lines,” Mr White said.

“We support local universities – Macao Polytechnic Institute in Macau – with education courses for local students about gaming, and what is product testing. We also provide education for the regulators about what it is we do; why we do it; and how this [work] seeks to support them in regards to inspections and audit processes.”