La. Admin. Code tit. 35 § XVII-13123

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 9, September 20, 2024

Section XVII-13123 - Totalizator or Other Approved Equipment Required

A. Pari-mutuel wagering on historical horse races shall only be conducted through the use of a totalizator or other similar mechanical or electrical equipment.

B. The totalizator or other mechanical or electrical equipment shall be available for testing under the supervision of the commission upon request by the commission to ensure its proper working order.

C. Wagering on historical horse races shall be offered on terminals that include a cabinet in which the electronics and other operating components are located. All terminals and other equipment shall be subject to inspection by the commission.

D. The terminal cabinet and electronics shall:

1. protect against electrostatic interference by being grounded so that static discharge energy shall not permanently damage or inhibit the normal operation of the electronics or other components within the wagering terminal. In the event that a temporary disruption of the normal operation of a wagering terminal occurs as a result of an electrostatic discharge, the wagering terminal shall have the capacity to recover and complete any interrupted wager without loss or corruption of any control or critical data information. Each terminal shall be tested to a maximum discharge severity level of 27 kilovolt air discharge;

2. not be adversely affected, other than during resets, by surges or dips of up to 20 percent of the supply voltage. If a wagering terminal is designed such that a surge or dip of up to 20 percent of the supply voltage causes a reset, the terminal shall also be designed so that a surge or dip shall not result in damage to the equipment or loss or corruption of data. Upon reset, the wager play shall return to its previous state or return to a wager completion state, provided the wagering history and all credit and accounting meters comprehend a completed wager play;

3. have an on/off switch that controls the electrical current installed in a readily accessible location within the interior of the terminal so that power cannot be disconnected from outside of the terminal using the on/off switch. The on/off positions of the switch shall be labeled;

4. be designed so that power and data cables into and out of the terminal can be routed so that they are not accessible to the general public. Security-related wires and cables that are routed into a logic area shall be securely fastened within the interior of the terminal;

5. have an identification badge affixed to the exterior of the terminal by the terminal provider that is not removable without leaving evidence of tampering. This badge shall include the following information:

a. the name of the terminal provider;

b. a unique serial number;

c. the terminal model number; and

d. the date of manufacture;

6. have an external tower light located conspicuously on the top of the terminal that automatically illuminates when a patron has won an amount that the terminal cannot automatically pay or when an error condition has occurred;

7. be constructed of materials that are designed to allow only authorized access to the inside of the terminal. The terminal and its locks, doors, and associated hinges shall be capable of withstanding determined and unauthorized efforts to gain access to the inside of the terminal and shall be designed to leave evidence of tampering if such an entry is made;

8. be equipped with doors of a locked area that are designed to resist the use of tools or other objects used to breach the locked area by physical force;

9. have external doors that shall be locked and monitored by door access sensors. When the external doors are opened, the door access sensors shall:

a. cause wagering activity to cease;

b. disable all currency acceptance;

c. enter an error condition;

d. illuminate the tower light at a minimum; and

e. record the error condition. The requirements of this Subsection do not apply to the drop box door;

10. have external doors designed so that it shall not be possible to insert a device into the terminal that will disable a sensor that indicates "door open" without leaving evidence of tampering when the door of the terminal is shut;

11. have a sensor system that shall provide notification that an external door is open when the door is moved from its fully closed and locked position, provided power is supplied to the device;

12. have a logic area, which is a separately locked cabinet area with its own monitored, locked door or other monitored, locked covering that houses electronic components that have the potential to significantly influence the operation of the terminal. There may be more than one such logic area in a terminal. The electronic components housed in the logic area shall include:

a. a central processing unit and any program storage device that contains software that may affect the integrity of wagering, including the individual play accounting, system communication, and peripheral firmware devices involved in or that significantly influence the operation and calculation of wager plays, wager outcome display, wager result determination, or wager play accounting, revenue, or security;

b. communication controller electronics and components housing the communication program storage device; and

c. the nonvolatile memory backup device, which if located in the logic area, shall be kept within a locked logic area; and

13. have a currency storage area that is separately keyed and fitted with sensors that indicate "door open/close" or "stacker receptacle removed," provided power is supplied to the device. Access to the currency storage area shall be secured by two locks before the currency can be removed. The locks shall be located on the relevant outer door and on at least one other door.

E. Critical memory requirements shall include the following:

1. Critical memory storage shall be maintained by a methodology that enables errors to be identified, including signatures, checksums, partial checksums, multiple copies, timestamps, effective use of validity codes, or any combination of these methods.

2. Comprehensive checks of critical memory shall be made following wager play initiation but prior to display of wager outcome to the patron.

3. An unrecoverable corruption of critical memory shall result in an error state. The memory error shall not be cleared automatically and shall cause the terminal to cease further functioning. The critical memory error shall also cause any communication external to the terminal to immediately cease. An unrecoverable critical memory error shall require restoration or clearing of software state by an authorized person.

4. If critical memory is maintained in nonvolatile memory on the terminal and not by the server-based system, then:

a. the terminal shall have the ability to retain data for all critical memory as defined in this Section and be capable of maintaining the accuracy of the data for 30 days after power is discontinued from the terminal;

b. for rechargeable battery types only, if the battery backup is used as an off-chip battery source, it shall recharge itself to its full potential in a maximum of 24 hours, and the shelf life of the battery shall be at least five years;

c. nonvolatile memory that uses an off-chip backup power source to retain its contents when the main power is switched off shall have a detection system that will provide a method for software to interpret and act upon a low battery condition before the battery reaches a level where it is no longer capable of maintaining the memory in question. Clearing nonvolatile memory shall require access to the locked logic area or other secure method, provided that the method is approved by the commission; and

d. following the initiation of a nonvolatile memory reset procedure, the wagering program shall execute a routine that initializes all bits in critical nonvolatile memory to the default state. All memory locations intended to be cleared as per the nonvolatile memory clear process shall be fully reset in all cases.

5. Critical memory of a server-based wager configuration may be maintained by the server, terminal, or some combination thereof. The critical memory related to each terminal shall:

a. be kept independent to all other wagering terminals. If corruption occurs in any single terminal's critical memory no other terminal shall be effected by the terminal's corrupt memory state; and

b. be clearly identified as to which physical terminal the critical memory represents, through unique identification, such as serial number or other unique terminal hardware identifier.

6. All terminals shall be equipped with a device, mechanism, or method for retaining the value of the meter information specified in §13135 in the event of a loss of power to the terminal. Storage and retrieval of the accounting meters from a server is an acceptable method of retrieval.

7. Configuration setting changes shall not cause an obstruction to the meters.

8. If the terminal is in a test, diagnostic, or demonstration mode, any test that incorporates credits entering or leaving the terminal shall be completed prior to resumption of normal operation. In addition, there shall not be any mode other than normal wagering operation that debits or credits any of the electronic meters. Any wagering credits on the terminal that were accrued during the test, diagnostic, or demonstration mode shall be cleared before the mode is exited. Specific meters are permissible for these types of modes, provided the meters are clearly identified.

9. Terminals shall not allow any information contained in a communication to or from the online monitoring system that is intended to be protected, including validation information, secure personal identification numbers, credentials, or secure seeds and keys, to be viewable through any display mechanism supported by the terminal.

F. Program storage devices shall be required to comply with the following.

1. All program storage devices shall:

a. be housed within a fully enclosed and locked logic compartment;

b. validate themselves during each processor reset; and

c. validate themselves the first time they are used.

2. Program storage devices that do not have the ability to be modified while installed in the terminal during normal operation shall be clearly marked with information to identify the software and revision level of the information stored in the devices.

3. Server-stored information shall be backed up no less often than once per day to an offsite storage facility. Offsite storage may include storage through a cloud service provider if approved by the commission. The server and offsite backup storage shall be accessible to the commission and subject to third-party checks and validation.

La. Admin. Code tit. 35, § XVII-13123

Promulgated by the Office of the Governor, Division of Administration, Racing Commission, LR 481818 (7/1/2022).

AUTHORITY NOTE: Promulgated in accordance with R.S. 4:141, R.S. 4:142 and R.S. 4:148.