“Most of our investment is now focused on the northern hemisphere”

Martin Storm is the Owner, President & CEO of BMM Testlabs and has led BMM’s expansion beyond its initial domestic focus into a truly global provider of product compliance services, with testing access to more than 450 gaming jurisdictions around the world, and operating from twelve locations internationally within Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America.

G2E is in full swing. How is BMM participating this year?

I was recently reminiscing about my first G2E in 2002. I vividly remember how intense my ambition was for a strong BMM presence at this show. From 2003, this will be our 15th consecutive G2E as an exhibitor and BMM now has a magnificent booth in a great location, with more than 20 of our business leaders attending from all over the world to support our stakeholders. And we have a great cocktail party tonight.

BMM is one of only two global gaming labs. What sets BMM apart?

Year on year BMM had the least amount of testing errors of any major lab, so BMM has led the quality metrics for product certification over the last 15 years, all over the world. In parallel we also evolved an extraordinary culture of ‘care,’ which is the single promise that defines who we are. Caring for the work we do, caring for our customers and stakeholders, caring for each other and the world we live in.

You are the only independent gaming lab from outside the USA to complete market access in North America. There are about 300 gaming regulators and lottery regulators in the USA and Canada. How many more jurisdictions does BMM still need to achieve?

The only major commercial jurisdiction in the U.S not to accept product certification reports from BMM is the Illinois Gaming Board, which has remained a challenge for BMM for more than a decade. Unfortunately, this has been a material economic block for BMM, even though we have successfully completed major projects for the IGB in the early years, and worked for many years with the Illinois Lottery regulator. Interestingly, the IGB is just a product transfer letter, a push of the print button for a transfer letter. I remain hopeful that the IGB staff will discover a more balanced view when it comes to accepting our excellent certification reports.

There are also a handful of U.S. tribes that are yet to make the leap from one to two labs. Education and support is often a key with tribes and we are very committed to both. But have no doubt, we will get there. Persistence and excellence are powerful performance factors.

How competitive has BMM in the USA been in the last three years?

From a competitive perspective, even without complete U.S market access, BMM has made significant customer share gains with the largest gaming manufacturers in the USA including major wins with IGT, ATA, VGT and Interblock, just to name a few. In that time, we’ve also won 43 new clients, including 32 competitively, for only three losses. I believe we may just have won back one of those three. So, we now service more than 150 manufacturers in North America, nearly 400 worldwide, and test some of the most important products.

In addition to the excellent growth in the USA, BMM won significant business in Italy recently. How did that happen?

Over the last two years, we established a great team in Italy to intercept recent changes in legislation enabling manufacturers to test VLT products with independent labs. This made possible new relationships and compelling value propositions from BMM for six major segment players. We won more than 50 percent of that business.

Where does more growth come from?

Whilst remaining selective, we look to expanding our coverage in new markets, being more active in existing markets, attacking some product line segments more aggressively, and continuing to innovate with our engagement models, with most of our investment now focused on the northern hemisphere where we have significant runway for growth.