Rules adopted to allow digital data storage
By Rick Ask
Acting Administrator
Gambling Control Division
New administrative rules allowing video gambling machine manufacturers to build machines with audit storage devices for use in place of duplicate printed audit tapes went into effect January 30, 2009. Manufacturers may now build machines where audit data is stored digitally using an Audit Storage Device (ASD) instead of on audit tapes.
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Rick Ask
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Currently, impact printers are necessary in order to print the audit tape copy of the electronic meter readings and machine play records.
During a Gaming Advisory Council meeting last year, some video gambling machine manufacturers expressed concern about the continued availability and additional costs associated with installing impact printers in Montana legal video gambling machines.
It was also suggested that Montana may be the only jurisdiction in which impact printers were still necessary because of the tape requirements. Further analysis indicated those other jurisdictions required machines to be linked to a state-wide networks or in-house computer systems to record meter and play information.
The Gaming Advisory Council formed a sub-committee to study the issue and posed the question to the manufacturers: how could the functionality of audit tape—storing meter and performance data—be replaced without requiring the installation of an expensive location or state-wide network?
The answer developed was to replace the functionality of the tape roll with a digital record stored on an Audit Storage Device (ASD). The only storage device described so far was a “thumb” drive that could be plugged into the logic board of a machine. Data currently stored on a tape would be stored on the thumb drive and protected using an electronic signature.
In addition to the adoption of administrative rules, the Division, in cooperation with machine manufacturers, has developed technical specifications and requirements that are now available on the Division’s web site at <www.doj.mt.gov/gaming/forms.asp>.
It is anticipated that the first machine with a thermal printer and alternative storage device, probably a thumb drive, will be submitted for testing in March or April, 2009 and, if all goes well, available to the market soon afterward.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times,
March 2009, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W Granite, Suite 102, Butte MT. 59701