How QA testing works in the iGaming industry

Intro: why iGaming has a special QA

The game provider lives at the intersection of financial transactions, regulation and entertainment. An error in math or payments is money; live stream failure - reputation; non-compliance - market ban. Therefore, the quality process combines product, technical, legal and operational contours.

1) Team and roles

QA Lead / Test Manager. Processes, strategy, risks, release gates, reporting.

SDET / Automation QA. Autotest frameworks: API/UI/mobile, stand stabilization.

Game QA. Gameplay, pay tables, bonus phases, volatility, UX.

Math/RNG QA. Verification of formulas, simulations, verification of seed/commit-reveal/VRF (if any).

Payments/FinOps QA. PSP/Acquirer, currencies, limits, chargebacks, cashout flow.

Live QA. Video streams, delay, synchronization of dealer UI and client HUD.

Localization/Accessibility QA. Languages, fonts, RTL, contrast, screen-readers.

Certification/Compliance QA. Artifacts for laboratories, jurisdictions, RG screens.

2) Testing pyramid (bottom to top)

1. Unit: payment logic/mechanic, calculation utilities, validation of RTP configs/rates.

2. API/Contract: RGS, wallet, tournaments, jackpots, responsible game limits.

3. Integration: game ↔ RGS ↔ wallet/PSP ↔ CRM/anti-fraud ↔ BI.

4. E2E/UI: player scenarios (onboarding → deposit → game → cashout).

5. Live/Stream: studio stability, latency, failover, sound/angle quality.

6. Load/performance: peak sessions, tournaments, progressive jackpots.

7. Security/Privacy: SAST/SCA/DAST, access, encryption, logging.

3) Checklist for slots and instant games

Mathematics and RNG

RTP profiles by geo, variance/volatility, paytable correctness.

Trigger frequencies feature, buy-feature limits, behavior during long sessions.

Sid management: repeatability, lack of predictability.

UX/UI

First Paint ≤ 3-5 s, primary download weight ≤ 10-15 MB (mobile), stable 60/30 FPS.

Readability of fonts (Latin/Cyrillic/JP/KR/ZH), size of clickable zones, one-hand patterns.

Rule tables: completeness, localization, correct typography.

Compatibility

"Golden park" of devices by region: iOS/Android, weak devices, different GPU/SoC.

Networks: 3G/4G/Wi-Fi, quality degradation and repetition of requests.

Localization and culture

Semantic checks, taboo content, correct RTL, voice acting/volume.

4) Checklist for live games and shows

Streams: HLS/DASH, adaptive bitrates, latency, drop frames, synchronous HUD↔video.

Studio: light/camera/sound, angle mixes, switch delay, backup channels.

Dealer UI: betting timers, prohibited actions, tips, hotkeys.

Interactive: AR overlays, multipliers "by event," cross-mini-games.

Failover: switching to spare flow without losing bet; logging of the incident.

Cross-time zones: prime time regions, language tables.

5) Payments and wallets

Methods: cards/banks/local (PIX, PayID, etc.), currencies, commissions, limits.

KYC/AML branches, failures, cancellations, chargebacks, freezing and unlocking.

Cashout: SLA, statuses, retries, correctness of courses.

Logging and reconciliation: accuracy of jackpot/tournament/royalty calculations.

6) Compliance and Responsible Play (RG)

Visibility of deposit/time limits, reality check, self-exclusion.

Autospin/speed limits, age ratings, banner ad language.

Matrix of jurisdictions: allowed features, RTP profiles, warning texts.

7) Automation: where it really pays off

API/RGS and wallet contracts - fast feedback and release stability.

Regression of critical user flow (deposit/play/withdrawal).

UI snapshot tests (key screens, locales, RTL).

Data-driven simulation of mathematics - large runs of probabilities and RTP boundaries.

Monitoring tests in the product (synthetic): checking availability, latency, first paint.

💡 What's manual: animations, narrative, "juice" gameplay, UX nuances and live-directing.

8) Test data and bench management

Anonymization/masking of personal data; synthetic wallets/sessions.

Fixed seeds/presets for repeatability.

Isolation of environments (dev/stage/prod), feature-flags and canary releases.

Versioning of RTP configs/feature, unified register of geo parameters.

9) Load and stability

Tournament peaks, jackpot bursts, promo windows.

Degradation tests: oracle/PSP shutdown, latency increase, CDN drop.

Targets: throughput by rounds/sec, p95/99 latency, error rate, auto-scale and MTTR.

10) Security and privacy

SAST/SCA: no critical vulnerabilities, SBOM ≥ 95% dependencies.

DAST/pen test: injections, response spoofing, session capture, CORS/CSP.

Accesses: least privilege, rotation of secrets, signature of artifacts, immutability of builds.

Logs: integrity, retention, access only by roles, payment tracing.

11) Defects: classification and triage

Blocker/Critical: Money, RNG/Math, Payments, Privacy, Fall live.

Major: features/UX, out-of-tolerance behavior, localization, pen failures.

Minor: visual, texts that do not affect rules/payouts.

Triage: impact × probability × cost of remediation; SLA on fixes; clear "ready for release" scale.

12) Quality Metrics (KPIs) for iGaming

Reliability: uptime live ≥ 99.9%, p95 latency in SLA, crash rate ≤ 0.5% on "gold" devices.

Performance: First Paint mobile ≤ 3-5 s, build size ≤ 10-15 MB, stable FPS.

Mathematics/RNG: RTP deviations in tolerances, simulation success, lack of predictability.

Payments: success rate, median/95p cashout time, share of manual parsing.

Processes: regression time, defect density,% autotest coverage of critical flow, MTTR incidents.

Compliance: 0 blocking comments of laboratories, relevance of RG/locales.

13) Certification and artifacts

GDD, paytable, RTP profiles, simulation reports, RNG descriptions.

Test logs, trails, screencasts, device matrices, compatibility reports.

RG/advertising policies, rule/font localizations, accessibility.

Release logs, build signature, SBOM, SAST/DAST results.

14) Release pipeline (example)

1. Dev-Complete → Unit/API autotests are green.

2. Stage: RGS integration/wallet, smokies, crete flow regression, locales.

3. Load/Chaos: tournament peak, degradation, failover streams.

4. Security/Compliance gate: vulnerability reports, artifacts for laboratories.

5. Canary: 1-5% traffic, observability, rollback ≤ 15 minutes.

6. Go-Live: KPI monitoring, post-mortems on incidents, "quality log."

15) Frequent mistakes and how to avoid them

Autotests "by the picture" instead of contracts. Keep a strong API layer and data fixtures.

There is no "golden fleet" of devices. Real devices are more important than emulators for graphics and networking.

Poor telemetry. Without metrics/logs/trails, there is no fast MTTR.

Config mixing by geo. Version RTP/features, check migrations.

Ignore RG/locale. Texts/fonts/age requirements are the same "quality gates."

16) Fast start: what to implement in 6-8 weeks

Set of contract API tests (RGS/wallet/jackpots) + nightly regression.

Device-laboratory: 10-15 "gold" devices by key geo.

SLO dashboards: uptime/latency/FP/crash/payments + alerts.

Release gates: autotests, security scan, build size, locales/RG check.

Certification artifact template: Collect "on the way," not on the last day.

Quality in iGaming is a system where math, UX, payments, live streams, security and regulation are linked by shared gates and telemetry. Teams that win are:

1. build a pyramid of tests with a strong API layer and meaningful automation;

2. keep a "golden fleet" of devices and measure performance as a product metric;

3. prepare certification artifacts during sprints;

4. consider RG/localization to be part of the quality rather than the "last screen."

Such QA makes releases predictable, reduces the cost of incidents and speeds up market access - and gives players a stable, honest and understandable experience.