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Gaming machines now control themselves

At the beginning of 2006, the German Gaming Ordinance was fundamentally altered – and type examination at PTB thus placed on a new basis. For the protection of players, the modified Ordinance sets limits for winnings and losses and prescribes the installation of a mandatory monitoring unit which continuously ensures – in the background – compliance with these limits.

Self-controlling of the machines at the place of
installation, supplementary to type examination.

The previous Gaming Ordinance was chiefly based on the capacities of mechanical gaming machines operating with rolls. It mainly controlled the course of the individual games and limited losses by suppressing certain gaming features. This had the disadvantage that in type examinations, newly created games realised by means of modern, electronically operated machines could hardly be traced back to the Gaming Ordinance any more. Consequently, this led to a growing insecurity not only in type examinations, but also in the surveillance of the gaming business.

By means of the new Gaming Ordinance, a transparent and technically up-to-date principle is now being introduced for the legal protection of players. The core element of this new Ordinance is the concept of a monitoring unit. This concept was developed at PTB and registers all stakes and winnings during the operation of the machine. These registered data serve to monitor the gaming process directly and permanently, with the aim of controlling compliance with certain money-to-time ratios (for example, the sum of losses must not exceed 80 Euro per hour). Since the essential regulations of the Gaming Ordinance are incorporated in the software of the monitoring unit, the focus of the type examination is now on the testing of the functions of the monitoring unit itself and on compliance with a high technical realisation level for a tamper-proof integration of this unit in the gaming machine. Besides a more effective type examination, this brings about more security for the inspectors of the Trade Supervisors Authorities checking the machines at their place of installation.

In contrast to the old Gaming Ordinance, where the period of installation was limited, the new Gaming Ordinance offers the opportunity to extend the period of installation of a machine if a technical inspection has been carried out before.
This modification was essentially based on a field study by PTB on the reliability of gaming machines; in the course of this study, approx. 250 machines had been observed during commercial operation for a period of approx. two years. With regard to the failure behaviour, no significant differences were observed between older and younger machines.

Contact at PTB:

Phone: +49-531-592-0