A Quarterly supplement to IGWB

 
   The Official Magazine
of the Gaming Standards Association  

FALL 2002 

Editorial

By Marian Green

A New Partnership With GSA

One of the first articles written about the gaming standards movement appeared in this magazine in 1998, as a fledgling group called GAMMA was just getting off the ground. At the time, Slot Manager recognized this was an issue of paramount importance to the gaming industry, and has followed the organization closely as it pursued its goals ever since. 

That’s why it’s an honor for us to announce that the group, now called the Gaming Standards Association (GSA), has designated Slot Manager as its official publication.

GSA has come a long way in the four years since its then seven-member board set a high bar for itself — to develop standard slot-communication protocols. While an attainable goal, it requires suppliers, who, after all, are also business competitors, to set aside their egos and work as a team and a lot of listening to learn what operators really want and need.

An important step to moving the group forward was the involvement of gaming industry operators. Mandalay Resort Group, Harrah’s Entertainment, Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming are all members of the organization now, and their presence has helped focus the group’s goals.

Along the way, operators and manufacturers have each gained greater understanding of and appreciation for the business challenges that face the other, and that has fostered more dialogue than took place in the past.

GSA’s strides include establishing GamPro A-Link, which serves as the vehicle between slot machines and a facility’s networking board, and creating the Serial-B Link to facilitate communication between the internal workings of slot machines and all of the peripheral devices.

Just last month, the standards group reached another milestone when it adopted IGT’s SAS 6.00 as an official GSA-specified protocol. “This is a major accomplishment for GSA,” Chairman Gregg Solomon said. “It is the culmination of eight months of joint development between our member companies working through our SAS workgroup. The speed at which this was done will surely set the pace for our future standardization work.”

A perfect fit

You can expect to read more about the group’s strides in Slot Manager, as GSA will provide quarterly contributions in each upcoming issue, beginning in January, and will play a role in future Slot Manager Institutes.

We’re excited about this new arrangement, which promises to offer our core audience — the slot professionals, regulators and suppliers who are most affected by standardization issues — more cutting-edge news they can use to stay abreast of the latest developments. May this be the beginning of a long and productive working relationship.

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