AGMMA Supports GSA Protocol

Further solidifying its leading role on the global stage of the gaming industry, the Gaming Standards Association (GSA) has received further support of its new Game-to-System (G2S) protocol that will be the result of the integration between its Best-of-Breed (BOB) and IGT's SuperSAS(TM) protocols

The Australasian Gaming Machine Manufacturers Association (AGMMA) Board of Directors has advised GSA that it supports this protocol as its official protocol.

"The support from AGMMA is great news for all those companies doing business in the Australasian region. The technology used in GSA standards will offer open sophisticated levels of control not present in any other protocol," said GSA President Peter DeRaedt. "The protocol will assist with the responsible gaming concerns present in today's industry."

AGMMA Executive Officer Ross Ferrar, said, "The new protocol represents an important alternative. First, the GSA protocol provides an open standard. Second, the new protocol offers far more hands-on-control than other proprietary protocols and a number of significant technical advantages. In addition, the GSA standard can manage the entire player experience in both gaming and hospitality."

Ferrar continued, "A recent analysts' report highlights the importance of the need for standardization in the industry. It notes that one casino operator in the United States has flagged the lack of standardization as the reason why it took more than two years to implement Ticket in Ticket out (TITO) across all of their properties. The report adds that one manufacturer estimated that 41 percent of its R&D budget is spent on game content, 37 percent on new technology development and 22 percent on getting applications approved for different markets. That manufacturer, the analyst reported, estimated that it could save 25 percent of R&D or divert the expenditure into improving game content if a standard set of protocols was developed.

He concluded, "The GSA standard is also important because the result will be an open market protocol with no fee charged to manufacturers or operators for use of the protocol."

AGMMA is a not-for-profit industry association representing the interests of its members, which provides technology and equipment to hospitality venues in more than 250 jurisdictions around the world. AGMMA hosts and operates the Australasian Gaming Expo, the Asian Gaming Expo and the New Zealand Gaming Expo.

In September, GSA and International Game Technology (NYSE: IGT) announced their intentions to integrate GSA's Best of Breed (BOB) Version 1.1 and IGT's SuperSAS(TM) protocols, and since then the two groups have been moving quickly toward completing the integration.