About the Institute
27 Years in Emerging Gaming Markets
Three times in 27 years, a new gaming category has arrived with technology ahead of regulation. Each time, the same work was required.
The thesis
Three times in 27 years, a new gaming category has arrived with technology ahead of regulation. Each time, the same work was required: defining what the product is, establishing what operators must do, and specifying what the technology must demonstrate. The Institute for Emerging Gaming Markets exists to do that work before regulators scramble and before incumbent testing laboratories follow.
Class II tribal gaming
The first chapter was Class II tribal gaming. From 1999 to 2011, as a Platform Architect at Bally Technologies, I built Class II and lottery gaming systems while the National Indian Gaming Commission was writing 25 C.F.R. Parts 543 and 547, the Minimum Internal Control Standards and Technical Standards that still govern tribal gaming today. I was on the technology side, building the products the frameworks were written to govern.
Charitable gaming
The second chapter was charitable gaming technology. At Acres 4.0 I worked on pulltab gaming systems. At Pilot Games I served as Executive Vice President from 2019 to 2025, scaling a network of over 15,000 regulated gaming devices, leading SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, and managing regulated game development across multiple platforms. The company won US Gaming Company of the Year in 2021 and 2023.
Prediction markets and the Institute
The third chapter is prediction markets. The Institute's first publication, the Prediction Market Consumer Protection Standards, is the first structured consumer protection framework for prediction market operators, built on 149 primary regulatory sources and modeled directly on the NIGC framework I worked alongside a quarter-century ago. Skill-based charitable gaming standards follow. The Institute's work is jurisdiction neutral, grounded in primary sources, and written to be used.
Founder
Tony Morelli, PhD
Institute for Emerging Gaming Markets, Aevora Solutions LLC.
- PhD, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno (2011)
- 17 issued US patents in gaming technology
- Expert witness, USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (IPR2018-00529 and others)
- Associate Professor of Computer Science, College of Charleston (2025 to present)
- Advisor to law firms and financial institutions on gaming market dynamics
Disclosure
Independence and affiliation
The Institute for Emerging Gaming Markets is a standards body housed under Aevora Solutions LLC. It is not affiliated with any academic institution, testing laboratory, operator, or regulator, and no academic appointment held by the founder is connected to the Institute's work.
The Institute takes no position on the federal and state jurisdictional dispute over prediction markets. Its standards are written to be applied on their own terms, independent of how that question is resolved.