Case Study
The Situation
As cashless gaming continues to grow around the world, operators and regulators are exploring options to bring solutions to their floor securely and compliantly. Marker Trax is innovating in the cashless space, providing an electronic marker and credit software solution to casinos, enabling them to enroll and issue markers for their players to use at slot machines. In concert with the rise of cashless transactions and increased demand for their electronic casino marker solution, Marker Trax sought to expand its product globally. The question arose, how could they navigate the complex and varying regulations across different markets and jurisdictions in order to expand from the U.S. to Europe, Latin America, Canada, Australia, and Asia – quickly and efficiently, targeting customers in jurisdictions that allowed their type of product?
The Challenge
As Marker Trax planned its course to achieve global expansion, the company quickly realized building a compliance matrix that covered domestic and foreign markets was critical to their success. They needed more visibility and expert guidance into regulations and requirements for credit, cashless, and payment service providers so that Marker Trax could be viewed globally as a credit software solution and payment service provider. So how could they begin to build this compliance matrix, and how could they be certain the information was up-to-date and nuanced to fully comply with each jurisdiction’s unique regulations?
The Action
Marker Trax partnered with GLI, enabling them to tap into GLI’s global knowledge and local expertise. Leveraging their ongoing regulatory advisory agreement in place with GLI, Marker Trax engaged GLI to conduct an international jurisdictional review as well as a new concept review, gap analysis, market study, and compliance research. GLI’s product and compliance subject matter experts provided jurisdictional data sheets and summary analysis documents, which gave Marker Trax visibility into where their products are permissible by regulations, the applicable regulations and technical requirements, and new and emerging markets both domestically and abroad. This allowed their sales teams to apply their resources appropriately and directly.
The Standards
Two standards from the GLI Standards Series played key roles in the assessment, specifically, GLI-13 Online Monitoring and Control Systems and GLI-16 Cashless Systems in Casinos. The standards are globally adopted and give regulators options to either fully adopt GLI standards or use them as a jumping-off point when crafting regulations for their specific jurisdictions. The standards also give suppliers like Marker Trax a tremendous head start in R&D, because they provide a regulatory framework to develop against.
Results
GLI’s global product and compliance experts provided valuable insights and guidance, track down gray areas, and potential “gotcha” points, all of which enabled Marker Trax to quickly see and understand regulatory requirements in different markets. With the insight gained from GLI’s regulatory framework, Market Trax gained insight into where they should start, rather than focusing on jurisdictions outside of control. With this, Marker Trax developed and executed a sales strategy quickly and efficiently, armed with knowledge of where their product was allowed and where they could gain the most traction. GLI’s compliance specialists and advisers are in every market and jurisdiction and were therefore able to provide the most up-to-date market intelligence, giving Marker Trax the blueprint necessary to successfully navigate the complexities of deploying new technology globally. As a result, Marker Trax was able to confidently provide more customers with cutting-edge casino marker technology across new markets and increase their revenue.