What an accredited gaming test laboratory does

Accreditation comes first

Before a laboratory can test a slot or a gaming machine for a regulator, the lab itself has to be accredited. The relevant standard is ISO/IEC 17025, which sets requirements for the technical competence of testing laboratories — covering methods, equipment calibration, staff training and the impartiality of results. A national accreditation body audits the lab against this standard and re-assesses it periodically.

This is why a regulator will accept a report from a laboratory such as eCOGRA, Gaming Laboratories International (GLI), iTech Labs or BMM: the accreditation is independent evidence that the lab’s findings are technically valid, not merely an opinion.

What the laboratory actually examines

For an online game, testing typically covers several distinct areas:

• Random number generation — that outcomes are statistically unpredictable and uniformly distributed, with no exploitable pattern.
• Return-to-player (RTP) — that the long-run payout percentage produced by the code matches the published mathematical model.
• Game rules and paytable — that wins, bonus triggers and feature mechanics resolve exactly as the rules state.
• Fault handling — that a disconnection or power loss mid-spin is recovered correctly, with no lost or duplicated outcome.

The same logic applies to physical gaming machines, with additional checks on hardware components, meters and the security of the program storage.

Testing is jurisdiction-specific

There is no single global approval. Each market sets its own technical standard — for online games this is often based on the GLI-19 standard, while gaming devices may be tested against GLI-11. A regulator in one country may require checks that another does not, so a game frequently undergoes separate testing for each jurisdiction in which it will be offered. The laboratory issues a report tied to that specific standard, and the regulator uses it as the basis for approval.

From submission to approval

The testing process follows a consistent sequence. A game supplier submits the finished software build, together with its mathematical model and the rules of play, to an accredited laboratory. The lab reviews the maths independently, then exercises the game through automated test harnesses that can simulate far more rounds than any human could play — commonly hundreds of millions — to measure the real behaviour of the code against the model. The source code and the random number generator are examined directly, rather than inferred from play. Only when every required area passes does the laboratory issue its report; if something fails, the build is returned to the supplier for correction and later resubmitted.

The accreditation body and the laboratory are not the same

It is worth separating two roles that are easily merged. The laboratory tests games. The accreditation body — a national organisation, typically a member of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation — audits the laboratory itself, confirming it meets ISO/IEC 17025 and re-checking it at intervals. A regulator, in turn, decides which accredited laboratories it will accept reports from. This layering is what lets a regulator in one country rely on a test performed in another: it is the chain of independent oversight, rather than any single company’s word, that carries the weight.

What a test does not cover

A laboratory report speaks to the integrity of the game as submitted — not to a player’s chances in any given session, and not to matters outside the software, such as how an operator handles withdrawals or complaints. Those fall under the operator’s licence rather than the game’s certificate. Keeping that boundary in view holds a fairness report in proportion: it is strong evidence about the game, and silent about everything else.

Reading on: how RNGs and game fairness are certified, and how to read a certification report.