GLI-19 certification — what a lab actually checks
GLI-19 is the most cited standard in online casino technology and among the least precisely understood. What it covers, what review involves, and why nobody is simply 'GLI certified'.
What GLI-19 is
GLI-19 is Gaming Laboratories International's standard for Interactive Gaming Systems — the technical requirements an online gambling platform is expected to meet. It sits alongside GLI-11, which addresses gaming devices and is frequently referenced for game-level requirements.
It is a reference standard, not a law. Regulators adopt, adapt or ignore it as they choose, which is why a submission is always to a specific regulator in a specific market, informed by the standard rather than satisfied by it in the abstract.
The 'GLI certified' misunderstanding
There is no generic, portable certificate that makes a platform permanently certified. Certification is a laboratory's attestation that a specific version of a system meets a named standard, normally within the scope of a particular market submission.
This matters commercially. A supplier claiming to be 'GLI certified' without naming a version, a scope and a market is describing something that does not exist in that form. Ask which build, which standard revision, and for which regulator.
Slotty Labs is explicit about this: the platform is built to GLI-19 standards with a complete evidence package prepared in advance, and formal certification is completed per market as part of each operator's own submission, under their engagement with an accredited laboratory.
What review actually concentrates on
Laboratory review is less mysterious than it sounds. It concentrates on a small number of areas where failure is both likely and consequential.
Why the evidence package determines the timeline
The single biggest variable in certification duration is not the laboratory's queue — it is whether the evidence exists when review begins.
A lab cannot verify an RTP claim without a written math model and reproducible simulation output. It cannot assess an RNG from a description. It cannot confirm that a disputed round is reconstructable without seeing the round log format and a replay. Every one of those artefacts takes weeks to produce properly, and producing them under time pressure after review has started is how a quarter disappears.
This is why Slotty Labs assembles a seven-dossier package in advance, including a laboratory quick-start guide, source-code packaging tooling and a CycloneDX SBOM, so an accredited lab can begin technical review promptly once scope is confirmed.
RNG design and testing
The generator's construction, its entropy sources, its statistical behaviour, and whether it is isolated from anything the player can reach. A standards-based construction with continuous self-tests is the expected answer.
Game math and RTP
The written math model, the theoretical RTP derived from it, and simulation evidence that observed behaviour matches. Reproducible fixed-seed runs matter more than a large round count alone.
Player funds and accounting
Whether balances can go negative, whether retries can double-credit, whether the books reconcile, and whether player obligations are demonstrably covered.
Records and reconstruction
Whether every round is persisted, tied to the exact game version, and replayable outcome by outcome — and whether administrative actions are logged tamper-evidently.
Responsible gambling
Whether limits, reality checks, time-outs and self-exclusion are enforced by the system in the money path, rather than presented in the interface and bypassable elsewhere.
Security and access control
Authentication strength, administrative role separation, tenant isolation, key handling, and whether the audit log can be altered by the people it records.
Common questions
Want the evidence rather than the summary?
Book a technical demo — we will walk through the math models, the simulation output and the certification dossier directly.