The Technical Compliance function at Aristocrat is crucial for upholding the organization’s adherence to all relevant technical standards, regulations and laws. This applies across all of Aristocrat’s products, services and operational activities.
The team plays a vital role in providing expert guidance to all development teams from a product’s inception to its end-of-life, ensuring compliance is integrated throughout. The team also cultivates and maintains strong relationships with internal departments, regulatory bodies, and test labs. These collaborations are essential for safeguarding the organization’s integrity and preserving its operational licenses in all markets. A key aspect of this role involves monitoring, assessing, and implementing robust policies and procedures. This proactive approach helps to mitigate risks and consistently maintain compliance with evolving industry standards.

Reporting:

• Responsible for timely and effective communication of Regulatory Notifications and Technical Bulletins. This is a critical function that guarantees all requirements from regulatory bodies are consistently met, directly contributing to the ongoing integrity of Aristocrat’s license to operate.
• Responsible for preparing and submitting comprehensive reports on compliance activities to both senior management and regulatory bodies. These reports will encompass crucial information from audits, risk assessments, and training sessions.
• Advise management on trends and patterns impacting the approval of products and systems by regulatory agencies. This includes insights derived from forensic evaluations, field trials, or those related to major base or communications releases. This guidance is crucial for proactively navigating regulatory landscapes.

Monitoring and Assessment:

• Keeps abreast of changes to the rules, regulations, and legislative requirements of all gaming jurisdictions as they pertain to Aristocrat product and their requirements.
• Assess new and existing products or features for Regulatory Compliance; tests products to ensure requirements are met.
• Lead collaboration between all studios and stakeholders to ensure product specifications adhere to gaming guidelines for product submissions
• Resolves regulator and test lab issues which often requires the creation of technical documents or white papers for external consumption.
• Travels to regulatory labs to conduct hands-on testing and evaluation of Aristocrat products assessing against local jurisdictional requirements and collaborate directly with laboratory staff on both product approvals and problem resolution.
• Organize and lead meetings with Regulatory agencies and test labs with technical discussions about company products during submission, rework, and field trial activities.
• Manage and monitor regulated field trial processes and activities from pre-installation to completion ensuring transparency between Aristocrat, Regulators and customer properties.

Policy and Procedure Development:

• Create, update, and implement policies and procedures related to technical compliance, ensuring they are aligned with regulatory technical requirements and industry best practices.
• Promptly maintain the Technical Compliance Jurisdictional Matrix. This matrix is a crucial resource for all development teams, providing key technical requirements for all jurisdictions where Aristocrat conducts business.

Risk Management:

• Identify, assess, and mitigate technical compliance risks, which may involve developing and implementing risk mitigation strategies.
• Safeguard game integrity by enforcing regulations addressing technical issues and corrective actions to maintain compliance.
• Responsible for escalating regulatory issues and assigning appropriate risk levels to ensure all pertinent information is effectively communicated to our engineering, development, and test teams, including external test labs, primarily through JIRA. This proactive approach helps prioritize critical information and facilitates timely resolution.
• Advise and influence decisions regarding shipments to jurisdictions where critical software issues have been identified. This involves providing crucial input to ensure informed and strategic choices are made.

Audit and Review:

• Participate in internal and external audits to verify compliance with technical standards and regulations.
• Forensic Review: Manage forensic evaluations where escalation is required. Coordinate forensic activities including Aristocrat resources and product support issues where evaluations involve regulators or test labs.
• Responsible for coordinating interoperability testing at various locations, including Aristocrat facilities, regulator/test labs, and customer sites – where applicable.

Training and Awareness:

• Responsible for ensuring that global teams and stakeholders are fully aware of issues and that updates are consistently communicated across all regions. This ensures seamless information flow and alignment worldwide.
• Provide training and guidance to staff and development teams on technical compliance requirements and best practices. This is key to promoting a strong culture of compliance across the entire organization.
• Collaborate with QA and development teams to review and navigate product updates. This involves evaluating requirements for market suitability, company-recommended field testing, and determining the most effective methods for product release.