You’ve got some questions about online gambling fraud but there’s no platform to voice them out? You’re in the right place. In this article, we’ll walk through the rudiments of online gambling scams, and different types of gambling-related frauds out there. You’ll also understand how it affects your casinos and how to stay safe from these wrong hands.
What is Online Gambling Fraud?
It’s a known fact to anyone who ventures into online gambling that there’s a significant level of risks attached. So it’s expected that both the players and the bookmakers (casino managers) tread with some vigilance. Now, how does an online casino recognize these frauds when it sees one?
Online gambling fraud occurs when cybercriminals hover around crapshooters intending to defraud or abuse them. Meanwhile, this set of fraudsters has no direct connection with the matches. In other words, it’s safe to label them as unwanted guests. These scams take place when they attempt to manipulate or take advantage of an online gambling site.
Types of Fraud in Online Gambling
Fraudsters understand the flexible nature of the gambling system and that’s the leverage they adopt to upend the balance. They force their way in to hack, steal, cheat and manipulate both the players and the house. But what are the most common types of internet gambling fraud players need to know?
Besides, cybercriminals know the level of resources employed to stop them. So you should anticipate them trying some new approaches to penetrate the laid-down defenses. But the good news here’s that some fraud schemes occur time and time again. Let’s run through them.
Multiple Account Fraud
This occurs when con artists try to put themselves at advantage by controlling different users’ accounts at a time. The strategy here is the creation of multiple accounts operated by various IP addresses and devices to scam victims undetected. Sometimes, they’ve gone the extra mile by creating fake gambling sites. Once the accounts are successfully created, the following are the popular schemes they can adopt:
- Gnoming: This is when different accounts are created using the same bookmaker. In a less harmful way, gnoming is used to divert maximum bet restrictions. In other cases, the fake gambling sites created can be used to alter or influence gaming outcomes.
- Bonus Abuse: Scammers can also create various categories of fake accounts while using special offers as baits to lure new customers into the dungeon. Once a player falls for that trick, the fraudsters withdraw all the funds and abandon the accounts. That means you won’t be able to threaten them with account closure since they’ve achieved their goal.
- Chip Dumping: This is very common among online pokers. And what scammers do here’s to gain control of all the multiple accounts on the poker table. After that, they’ll turn the game in favor of one of those fake accounts by winning chips from other gamblers.
Credit Card Fraud
Apart from relying on casino reviews from socanadiancasino.com, there are also credit card scams used by con artists. This method is very common when you see players get scammed with stolen credit cards at gambling platforms.
If these folks could get your card’s access PIN and make it work, that’s a calamity looming. It’ll be easier for them to cart away the funds. This type of card fraud also allows money laundering from massive batches of stolen payment systems ready-made on the dark web.
Chargeback Fraud
Chargeback fraud is when a legit player calls for a chargeback under misrepresentation to secure their money back. It seems the fact that this method involves a legitimate customer explains why some folks call it friendly fraud. And it’s like a routine among online casinos.
For instance, someone who just lost some money can call up his bank. Afterwards, he can claim his card was used without his consent and he’ll get a refund for the losses. Can you see why it’s called a “friendly” fraud?
How Does Fraud Affect Online Gambling?
Like cancer, fraud eats deep into the flesh of online gambling and the downsides can be very disastrous. You should know that these problems also apply to other online businesses. And we need to identify and tackle them as a matter of urgency.
- Loss of Funds: This can be connected to money spent on chargebacks, wasting precious time pursuing bad players or losing bonuses. Whatever the source is, fraud never comes cheap.
- Loss of Resources: Imagine how much resources and time have been deployed into chasing these wrong elements and developing defenses. They could have been used to create state-of-the-art features to make gambling easier for players.
- Corrupted Reputation: The astonishing number of fake gambling sites makes it difficult for genuine ones to operate effectively. Even the payment processors consider many of these sites to be high-risk zones. It gets so complicated that you risk being banned if you refuse to regulate the chargeback rates.
- Diminished Customer Serenity: Investors, regulators, and stakeholders have started cracking down on gambling sites. The implication is that real players begin to lose trust in all the gambling sites. That’s not all, they also tend to see your online site from an unreliable lens.
How to Prevent Fraud in Online Gambling
From online gambling to other forms of online business, you should be strict with the KYC (Know Your Customer) protocol. And to do that, the following principles have to be followed during user sign-up.
- Government-issued age verification.
- ID approval (depending on the local laws in your area).
During user registration, all the relevant data needs to be captured using the following methods:
- Biometric scanning (device fingerprinting).
- Intellectual property (IP) fraud evaluation.
- Social media accounts evaluation.
To prevent casino scams, IP evaluation and biometric scanning will help bookmakers flag down account acquisitions. And it won’t matter whether the credentials were gotten via phishing attacks or stolen. At the final stage of the registration, the credit card info should also be monitored. This will help gambling owners to confirm if it poses any high-risk threats or is stolen.
Conclusion
There’s no assurance that fraud prevention and monitoring will be a cakewalk for online casinos and gambling operators. However, following this basic solution should reduce the workload. It should also give you the needed support to deal with chargebacks. Finally, your business outfits must foster deeper rapport with the players and user trust. That’s the key to operating without being caught in the thick web of frauds spinning through the online gaming world.