Part 2 of the interview with MR Cristian Pascu (AOPJNR Executive President): “The lack of extension of the transitional period after 1 July 2023 will affect small and medium-sized operators in particular”
We offer you the second part of the interview with Mr. Cristian Pascu – Executive President of A.O.P.J.N.R. – Association of Gambling Organizers and Producers in Romania, which, even if it is longer, answers almost all the questions that are currently bothering a gambling operator in Romania. A must read!
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Cristian Pascu
What do you think about the turmoil in the Compliance Bodies market? Chances are that, without their will and without being faulty, the Romanian CABs will be excluded from the market, and this important area of the market will become a monopoly. Do you consider that it could be a danger for our market, which operates mostly slot machine type gaming machines, to have no alternative to turn to and thus to impose too high prices for metrology services that over time “pluck” consistent small and medium financial operators?
It is already well known that this subject has given rise to heated controversy between firms authorised (licensed) as Compliance Bodies.
Without having any expertise on this subject, so without being able to express a value judgement in giving justice to one or other of the parties in whole or in part, what we can say as a general principle is that our interest, of the operators, is undoubtedly, in general, against monopoly. In particular, it is obvious that we want a competitive offer in the field that interests us directly, of the Conformity Bodies that carry out the technical checks of slot machines.
Of course, in the event of an undesirable monopoly, the lack of competition may make it easier to charge higher prices that are unfavorable to us, the beneficiaries of these services.
We believe that the resumption of institutional cooperation between ONJN and RENAR, with the development of the long-awaited accreditation scheme, would also be beneficial in this respect.
AOPJNR
One side of the market claims there are plenty of TAs, the other says the opposite. What do you think?
By the end of last year, 2021, TAs obtained by manufacturers complying with the new technical rules could be counted on one hand. I refer, to avoid confusion, to the number of producers who had finally obtained these TAs, there were about two, the first of which was (bravo!) since last September, the well-known Romanian producer. It is erroneous to only count the number of TAs from the point of view that for the same game mix you can get, for example, 4 TAs, for each of the types of cabinets on which that game mix is marketed.
Even if manufacturers are rushing to complete the last minute, and TAs have been issued in the last period at a steady pace (here a Bravo! to the only compliance body that makes this effort to be appreciated), overall we must note that the phenomenon is delayed compared to the deadline that was at the beginning of May when these TAs should have already been at the organizers so that they can make the checks of the machines according to the new TAs and be able to submit the authorization files in time to start from July 1 with the new type of machines.
But even if these TAs were already with the manufacturers – some of them don’t have them even today, but are expecting them soon – and if they had transferred them in due time to the organizers, there was still an essential condition to be fulfilled, namely the hard and software modifications to be carried out in each machine, case by case, and this operation has to be carried out on tens of thousands of machines!
Here’s one more reason why we need another transition period after 1 July!
A TA complying with the new rules takes a minimum of 6 months of testing and costs tens of thousands of Euros! It is currently only achievable by a few laboratories internationally.
-TO BE CONTINUED-
