The Gaming Standards Association has launched a new program to enable manufacturers to ensure consistent GSA protocol implementation, and operators to easily search for products that have been tested and certified to meet GSA protocol standards.

Under GSA’s new Protocol Certification Program, manufacturers can submit their products for testing certification.

A list of all certified products will then be posted to a new page on GSA’s Website, www.gamingstandards.com, where operators can quickly browse the list in search for products they are considering adding to their casino floors.

GSA’s certification program was designed to provide the industry a level of assurance that gaming products correctly implement GSA standards.

The primary focus of the program is to ensure consistent implementation of standards to ensure improved interoperability by striving towards “plug and play.” The Website will list gaming products that have been successfully tested for conformance to GSA standards by qualified testing laboratories.

 “GSA’s certification program was designed with the end-user, the operator, in mind,” said Marc McDermott, GSA technical director. “Through the program, operators can be confident that the products they see listed on the new Web page will interoperate with the other certified equipment on the gaming floor. Now with the site, operators can easily verify that the products they are considering putting on their floors are certified to work as intended.”

Testing and certification will be conducted by the industry’s leading independent test labs. The labs would be individually accredited by an International Standards Organization (ISO) recognized Accrediting Body to the ISO 17025 standard with a GSA scope. Games, systems, peripherals and other devices will be independently tested and certified by these labs to ensure they operate in accordance with the protocols. The certifications exclusively relate to protocol communications, and are not certifications as required by regulatory testing guidelines.

As products are added, the new certification page will serve as an information clearinghouse where operators can quickly see a list of all gaming devices and systems certified to work on GSA’s new Game-to-System (G2S) protocol and on the System-to-System (S2S) protocol.