We’re all in this together
Today, we are facing a truly unprecedented situation. The global COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all of our families, our businesses, and our way of life – and our thoughts and wishes are with those directly affected by the virus.
IGT will, of course, be in touch with you on specific issues but we wanted to share some tips on maintaining your gaming machines during this closure.
Thank you for your partnership, we value your business and wish you, your family and your business all the best in the time ahead. Feel free to reach out to me, or the team, during this time.
Regards,
Craig Harley & the IGT QLD team
Tips for maintaining your gaming machines during shutdown
Given the Government mandate to close all pubs, clubs and casinos we thought it’d be useful to give you some tips on maintaining the health of your gaming machines. That way you can protect your investment and power up with fewer problems when you come back online again.
When gaming machines (EGMs) are powered down for an extended period it can affect the rechargeable battery used for the machine’s back-up memory.
All EGMs have backup memory to ensure the machine retains a ‘memory’ of gameplay for regulatory and gameplay reasons.
Due to the nature of capacitors and NiMH type batteries used in an EGM’s major components, IGT recommends powering on all EGMs for a minimum of 4 hours every three days to allow batteries and capacitors to maintain charge.
This avoids memory backup corruption and component failures, which may lead to unexpected EGM down time when clubs, pubs and casinos come back online after this pandemic is over.
For any IGT EGMs 15 years or older - i.e. Game King, GU4 and bluechip (AU1) - IGT recommends avoiding powering down these EGMs where possible.
Why? The backup batteries in these older products may no longer function at a good capacity and replacement parts may be limited.
IGT also recommends that progressive controllers and IGT player tracking systems hardware are not powered down where possible.
