Nevada regulators to review host of technical standard modifications next month

The NGCB has spent years overhauling the state’s technical architecture and those modifications are ready for evaluation.
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The Nevada Gaming Control Board is set to review proposed changes to several of the state’s Technical Standards for Gaming Devices and Associated Equipment, from slot systems to cashless wagering accounts, racing and sportsbooks and more at its next meeting on 7 October.

The draft dates for the proposals are between June and August with 10 criteria being revised in total. The board on 4 September informed licensees that the amendments had been compiled and the date of the meeting. Interested persons may submit comments before the hearing until October 5.

The size of the adjustments varies, but most are rather important in terms of words added or deleted. For example, proposed amendments to Standard 9 (digital pari-mutuel systems) are primarily minor additions, whereas Standard 3 (slot metering systems) includes full sections both added and withdrawn. Explanatory notes for the revisions are spread throughout all of the proposals.

Nevada, although regarded the top casino state in the US, has been seen as lethargic and crowded in its regulation of technology compared to other up-and-coming jurisdictions throughout the US. Modernization has been one of the major priorities since NGCB Chair Mike Dreitzer took over last June and these recent improvements are an extension of that.

“I think we reached a point where we said, you know what, let’s put aside everything else we’re doing right now and get these over the finish line and out for comment so that we can make sure that we’re current with things,” Jeremy Eberwein, chief of the board’s Technology Division, told iGB.

Putting everything at one place
“The main work was putting all the technical information together and codifying it in one place,” Eberwein added. Some Technical Standards existed but other requirements lived in the state’s Minimum Internal Control Standards, which are a diverse mixture of technical and procedural standards.

The aim is to make it easy for licencees to find technical knowledge in one definitive source rather than having to hunt across several libraries. Most of the explanatory comments of the modifications refer to adaptations from MICS and other sources. The process has been years in the making, with work starting and halting at different stages, Eberwein said.

“We had different iterations of the drafts internally going back at least a decade probably, and just never got to the finish line for various reasons,” he said.

The board hopes the proposed drafts are more or less finalized, while stakeholder input is likely during the comment period and at the hearing. The Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers, a body that normally speaks out on such topics, did not reply to a request for comment before publication deadline Friday. Depending on the level of comments or possible objections from the Nevada Gaming Commission, the revised guidelines might be implemented and published before the end of the year.

NGCB critical period
It's been a hectic spell for the board since the start of 2025. In that period, the agency has handed out five multi-million-dollar anti-money laundering penalties to firms on the Las Vegas Strip, a historic run of sanctions for America’s gambling hub.

Four probes – Resorts World Las Vegas, MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Venetian – focused on AML breaches related to illicit bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, who was added to the state’s exclusion list in April. The other case regarding Wynn Las Vegas has nothing to do with Bowyer’s gambling.

Federal prosecutors said the $130 million forfeiture paid by Wynn to the federal government for a series of proxy betting offenses was “believed to be the largest forfeiture by a casino based on admissions of criminal wrongdoing”.