Danish regulator to loosen testing requirements

The regulator opened a consultation on a number of changes, with stakeholders able to submit their opinions on the new rules.

Previously, test companies could use ISO 17020, which is a conformity assessment that measures how a company performs inspections, as accreditation. Under the new changes, test companies must instead use ISO 17025, which focuses on the specifications and conditions of laboratory testing.

Spillemyndigheden also removed the condition that test companies need three year of experience to be deemed as such. The authority explained that this was due to the realisation that the people involved in a company are more important that the length of time it has been established.

For this reason, the requirements for staff experience remain unchanged.

In addition, it will no longer be necessary for test companies to have ISO accreditation in order to perform verification penetration testing, a form of testing which checks for and fixes vulnerabilities in a product. Spilemyndigheden explained that its certification carries enough approval, and that all licensees have relationships with Approved Vendor Scanners already.

Several standards for testing have also been addressed in the changes. For live casino equipment, new requirements will be in place to test roulette and card mixing apparatus. The three second rule, which ensures that each event of a casino game must take at least three seconds, will be moved from the list of inspection requirements to the list of testing requirements.

Besides testing, general inspection standards have will also be altered. The main document regarding these has been changed to include online bingo in the peer-by-peer game section, to make clear that online casino licensees can offer online bingo.

The requirement that a gaming system must store a customer’s self-exclusion status has also been removed after Spillemyndigheden determined that the information must not be kept for longer than necessary.

Spillemyndigheden expects all changes to be implemented in 2022.